[SplawnDarts]

There's been a long thread in "publications" about PTF, and the correctness of numerous theory assertions contained therein. I want to look at one of them in depth.

Background: A key concept explained in HoH is that there are cases where variance is good for you. Specifically, when in the "red zone" with an M less than 5 or so, you want to either get healthy or go broke. Festering at a low M accomplishes nothing and you will not likely survive long enough to get a big enough hand to have a big edge. Hence Harrington advocates getting all-in with almost any two when you can be first in while in the red zone.

The question: PTF puts forward a similar concept, namely that in fast MTTs, early variance is good for you (although it's not stated quite that way). You want to get a big stack or get out. PTF says to get aggressive faster in fast tournaments regardless of M, presumably to get that variance. Is this correct?

The Example: To accomplish this, PTF advocates plays such as preflop button calls during early levels with any two - a play that is clearly normally cash-game -EV. However, it is high variance.

The positions: There are several positions one could take on what Snyder has to say. I've named the ones I think are of interest for ease of discussion:

P1: Snyder is full of it. When M is big, chip EV is closly related to tournament EV, so play for +CEV.

P2: Synder is correct for the reasons stated in PTF - you want to go big or go home.

P3: Snyder is correct, but for the wrong reason. The reason to enter preflop with any two is that your opponents are poor postflop, so you actually have an edge despite weak cards. This is the "smallball" argument.

Ground rules: Be clear if you're talking about expected tournament value (TEV) or expected number of chips (CEV) when discussing expectations.

FWIW, I believe either P1 or P3 is correct depending on the situation. I'll expound later.

Discuss away!