[BigAlK]

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When I first read Dene Tribe's article myself, I was concerned that it would be/was very similar to Mr. Snyder's Poker Tournament Formula.

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When I started reading I actually thought the opposite (that it would be significantly different than Snyder's patience factor calculations). My conclusion after reading it was that it was a vastly simplified version of Snyder. Snyder assigns a skill level classification based on blinding off your entire stack whereas Tribe's measures remaining stack at the end of the first hour. Essentially Tribe stops midway thru Snyder's process and assigns the classification at that point.

Whether this simplification gets you to the same place or not is just conjecture without running some comparisons. My guess is it depends on the specific structure. If blind level progression is smooth and levels are short probably. Snyder's formula gives a more precise number that can better differentiate between two tournaments with comparable skill levels. Whether this matters is up for debate.

I was surprised that when Tribe says, "You may have already seen complicated systems which require the complete tournament blind structure, but the beauty of my system is simplicity," that he didn't specifcally mention Snyder. That's who I thought of when I read this (although the statement isn't true since Snyder only requires a partial blind structure as well). I assume the 2+2 Magazine editor is aware of Snyder's patience factor and I know Mason is. The lack of acknowledgement or mention surprised me.

But what I found most interesting was the several times in the article where Tribe says that your strategy should change based on the speed of the tournament. He briefly discusses Harrington's zone system making it clear that he believes this is optimal for high skill tournaments. But in the introduction, conclusion, and body he implies that your strategy should be different in a faster (lower skill) tournament. He doesn't go into much detail as to what those changes should be although the implication is there in several places, the most telling being "that is a big change quick and the Skillful player should avoid this tournament or quickly adapt a very aggressive style early in the tourney to pick up the necessary chips for survival." I was beyond amazed to read this since Mason has always contended that tournament structure and speed have absolutely nothing to do with appropriate strategy.