X-Post from Books: Discussion about Poker Tournament Formula

[Lloyd]

Hi all,

I stumbled upon this thread in the Books forum. I've only read about a half dozen posts but it seems like it's turning into an interesting strategy discussion, particularly concerning adjusting play based on how fast or slow a structure is. Besides the author, Mason has contributed several posts that are turning this into a good debate. I'd suggest people read that thread.

I'll leave this open I guess but I think it's best to post comments there.

[Lloyd]

For the daytime crowd, check out the thread referenced above.

[Lloyd]

Here are links to some posts by the author and Mason in this thread that I find very interesting. And if you care to discuss in this thread, that's fine. It might help filter through some of the superfluous posts.

Post by author on why considering the structure of a tournament is vital
Response from Mason on Above
Another post by the author

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
It might help filter through some of the superfluous posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since I wrote some of those superfluous posts I'll throw another one in here. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Hopefully it will generate some discussion.

As you'll see from a quick perusal of the thread or reading the key posts that Lloyd linked the crux of the discussion is whether faster tournaments require playing faster to stay ahead of the blinds than playing strictly "according to Harrington" would indicate.

Mason feels that tournament speed has no bearing on proper strategy although he feels that the book will usually lead someone to a proper decision, but for the "wrong reason" since in a fast tournament the Ms will be low relatively quickly. The author obviously feels differently.

My feeling is that making some adjustments for rapidly increasing blinds is within the spirt of what Harrington's "effective M" for short tables does. Since M is defined as a measure of how many orbits you could wait before being blinded out it isn't an accurate measure if blinds are going up almost every orbit.

Al

[Lloyd]

For the record, I didn't think your posts were "superfluous". But as soon as "Radar" started posting things went downhill fast in that thread.

And I was actually going to make the point that even Harrington understood that faster blinds (due to fewer people at the table) had an impact on "M" and that it's not a tough leap to go from that to "M" being impacted by the structure. But you beat me to it.

I'm not convinced either way but I will probably buy this book as I think it's at least something to think about.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not convinced either way but I will probably buy this book as I think it's at least something to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe that even those who don't think tournament structure should impact strategy might still get some value from the book, especially relative novices like myself.

Anyone could potentially benefit from his formula for quantifying the "speed" of a tournament. He provides a method for comparing 2 tournaments with different structures so that you can answer a question like "which of these two tournament choices is the best." He also has a method for estimating how long a tournament will last and what the size of the average chip stack will be at the final table.

His discussion of what he calls the 3 sources of power - chips, position, and cards - will drive home for a novice that there are more ways to win than showing down the best hand. This might also get more advanced players thinking about things from a different angle.

The only item I found that jumped out at me as less than accurate (not that I'm the best judge of that) is a chapter he has on chopping at the final table. Since the book is aimed at playing tournaments with fast structures his advice assumes that by the final table everyone will be shortstacked and playing it out will be a "crapshoot." I felt that his examples of a reasonable chop of the prize fund when you had a significant chip lead were giving up too much equity. He agreed that his advice might have been too conservative in that area.

[mornelth]

Thinking about M and stuff. M is the rough measure of the number of ORBITS you can fold and not play a hand and still stay in the tourney, right?

If your M is 30 - you're in the green zone, right?... The CORRECT answer is the good ol' favorite "it depends". If blinds are going to be doubled in the next couple of hands - your M will be 15. If blinds are going to be doubled in two orbits - then your REALISTIC (my definition) M is ... 16! Meaning, you CAN lose 2 orbits of blinds (your M drops to 28) and once the blinds double - your M gets chopped in half (2+14=16). Right so far?

Using similar extrapolation it should be clear that when you start two ALMOST EXACT SAME tournaments (starting chips, blinds, # of players, etc.) with the only difference being length of each level - then your M calculated by HOHII formula will be the same, but your REALISTIC M will be lower in the tournament with the shorter levels. This will continue to be the case throughout the tournament, so a strategy adjustment is absolutely necessary.

Let's assume you are enter Level 9 with an M of 14. Tournament structure 1 will have around 60 hands at this level, tournament structure 2 - only 30. Blinds will double after this level. In #1 you have 6 orbits in which to choose which hand to play before your M (and your FE) goes down the tubes, in #2 - only 30. I think it is OBVIOUS that you should be playing more aggressive/loose in #2 than #1 at this point. And (without reading the book) I think the point in question is - the faster the structure is - the more aggressive you should be in the early stages to accumulate a good-sized stack before everyone realizes that their M is [censored] and it's pushbot time.

Edit: Assuming all levels in #1 are 60 hands and 30 hands in #2 - your REALISTIC M in #1 is 10.5, and your REALISTIC M in #2 is 7.5 .

I do intend to buy the book at the first opportunity (when I'm done sqeezing every last drop of wizdom from NLHE-TaP).

[allenciox]

I personally believe that this topic is much more complicated than either Mason or Arnold has presented. I think the REAL answer is a worthwhile task, however, and the ideas presented are thought-provoking. Here is my take.

First of all, I want to mention that I came to Poker only after a number of years counting cards at Blackjack. My id on Paradise is BJKing2 and Pokerstars is BJKing because of my blackjack prowess (it never occurred to me when I created them the comments those names would provoke at the poker tables ;-) ). Arnold is a legend in the Blackjack community, and I think his book "Blackbelt in Blackjack" is the book that helped me more than anything else in learning how to succeed with advantage play.

I spent several hours a few weeks ago in a Barnes & Noble reading through his Poker Tournament Formula, for which I had high hopes. Those hopes were dashed however, and I did not buy the book. I felt that the book could be useful for people who do not know anything about LAG play get their feet wet, but I didn't think I could get anything useful out of it.

This is what I remember about Arnold's basic strategy. He sets out a a basic "position" strategy (poker is roshambo where cards beats chips, chips beats position, and position beats cards): In every position except hijack, cutoff, and button, fold. In hijack, cutoff, or button, raise if first in, call if limpers, and call a small raise if less than 10% of your stack regardless of what cards you hold. On the flop, fold if bet into, bet 1/2 pot or so otherwise. If reraised, fold. If called, bet the turn if checked to, fold otherwise. If called on the turn, bet the river if checked to, fold otherwise. He mentions that the speed of the tourney should determine how often you follow this basic position strategy: for fast tournaments you do it all the time, for medium tournaments you do it maybe half the time, and for slow tournaments, you do it about 20% of the time.

He modified the preceding strategy later in his chapter on cards. In this chapter he lays out situations where you might play hands in other than those three positions, i.e. a typically tight opening strategy in other positions. He also changes his postflop strategies to be sort of like Kill Phil advanced Postflop strategies: If you have a good draw on the flop, raise all-in if bet into instead of folding; if you have top pair or better raise all-in if bet into instead of folding.

So he presents a very simple LAG-positional strategy. Failings include:

1) not taking opponent tendencies into consideration; for example, don't bluff calling stations. This strategy is probably not a good one for low buyin internet tournies, where many players consider second pair the nuts.

2) not considering flop texture

3) not considering number of people seeing the flop when deciding what to do post-flop

4) not considering positional raises as a way of reducing the number in 3) making it more likely to succeed with postflop aggression.

5) Situations where M >> 20 is not considered, even though there may be levels in these tournaments when most players are deeper than that.

6) Arnold emphasizes the importance of maintaining a healthy M, but totally ignores Q --- I suspect that the marginal value of chips you hold is close to constant as you approach Q, and then lowers after Q. You can't be a fully functional poker player if your M is 20 when everyone else's M is below 10.

7) It assumes that everyone adjusts correctly to pushbotting situations when the time occurs; my experience is that few players at any level I have played at adjust sufficiently, even after HOH 2. I do not consider it advisable to take huge risks early on if you are playing in a tournament where you understand pushbotting but most don't.


Counterbalancing these are some positives:

1) In fast tournaments, opponents at your table are not likely to be able to get a read on you fast enough to know what you are doing --- you might get away with a three-barrelled bluff the first time you try it at a table, and by the time you have to try it again, you've been moved to another table,

2) It emphasizes the importance of chip accumulation, which is very important for going deep in tournaments. I personally believe that a stack = 2Q has less than 2*ROI of a stack = Q prebubble, but at the bubble or later, I think it may be more than 2*ROI of a stack = Q.

3) It recognizes the power of position, which until NLHTP I think was underrecognized by most players in deep-stacked no-limit poker. I know NLHTP opened my eyes a lot more to the importance of position.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
I personally believe that this topic is much more complicated than either Mason or Arnold has presented. I think the REAL answer is a worthwhile task, however, and the ideas presented are thought-provoking. Here is my take.


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I felt that the book could be useful for people who do not know anything about LAG play get their feet wet, but I didn't think I could get anything useful out of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

A reasonably accurate synopsis of the playing strategies recommended. Pretty good for a not-so-quick skim in Barnes and Noble. I've now read the book twice and can't claim to have adequately digested everything yet, nor come even close to integrating everything I want to into my own game. I think some of the failings you list are valid points, although others possibly not. I'm pretty sure that #1 (considering the tendencies exhibited by the other players in the pot - you can't bluff a calling station) is at least touched on in some manner. I'm sure he discussed flop texture and how to proceed to some degree although this is something that very few books cover (using the "you've got to learn through experience cop out"). The HOH series with its examples probably goes farther than anything else I've seen. I'm also sure he covers #5 (situations where everybody's M is > 20). In fact the positional strategy is most useful in just that situation (what he calls a competitive stack of 30-50BBs which would normally be an M of 20-32ish and sometimes higher).

The most important things I've learned from reading the book was an introduction to playing a LAG style. HOH has done a great job of pointing me towards good TAG play, but I knew that I needed to mix it up. This gave me the foundation for doing that. One of the 2+2ers who posted in the original discussion in the Books forum has a post in the forum on the Poker Tournament Formula's website where he calls these techniques "dangerous" in the hands of a beginner. Snyder recommends starting out LAG and then learning a TAG style to mix it up later. I agree that this might not be the best way for most people to learn, but for those who want to move beyond TAG (something that from your comments you've already done) then the PTF should be helpful.

My belief is that playing poker "strictly by the book" will only take you so far. I've always been a reasonable book learner, but the real power of learning anything from a book where there isn't any one correct answer (which I think applies here) is understanding and adapting different ideas into your game. There are some things in poker that have a definitive right answer (normally related to basic pot odds decisions). But in matters of style I think learning and understanding different styles, then integrating them into your game while learning what works in what situations (nothing substitutes for experience) can't help but improve your game. This is the only book I'm familiar with that is a good introduction to a more laggy approach to tournament play, at least until Nath writes his "Freakanomics of Poker" book.

[A_PLUS]

I agree with a lot of this. I have been talking about this main idea a lot recetnly.

With a skill advantage, you would like to have as many chips as the rest of the table. I think that statement is pretty much agreed upon. In a cash game, when you have a skill advantage, being short hurts your win rate. So, in cash games there is some advantage to being as deep as the table.
Lets say you buy into a 2/5 NL game, where everyone has 2000$ behind, but the max buy in is 500$. Wouldn't you take a 49.9% gamble to double your stack on the first hand

In tournaments the statement from above still holds. (in terms of CEV). But often in tournaments, you reach a point, where you start pushing 1+ times an orbit trying to maintain a playable stack. So, although a correct preflop push fold strategy is CEV (and not too bad in terms of CEV BB/100), other factors come into play. There is a significant opportunity cost of folding.

The CEV of a preflop push, can be broken down into:
-hand value
-position
-stack size
-FE (related to position and stack size)

Lets say there is no antes, to make things easy.
-I am on the button with 11xBB, and an average image. Pushing 72o is pretty much CEV neutral. (.08BBs to be exact with a calling range of A8s+,ATo+,66+,KQs).
-Same table, I folded the previous hand, and pick up 72o in the CO. An open push now, is worth -.29BBs)
-Pushing AJo UG, is worse than pushing 72o from the button, when you have 11xBB.

This is nothing new, but just an illustrative way to show opportunity cost in action. Every hand we fold makes our position worse, which hurts. Every blind we take hurts our stack and our F.E. When we are far from the money, and very short, this effect is very dramatic.

The whole point of that ramble, was to say that due to the opportunity cost of folding, we are forced to gamble more when we get short, which hurts our CEV win rate more than we would see in cash games.

So, given that short stacks dont play as well in tournaments. We are correct to take slightly (I dont know how much) the worst of it, to avoid reaching that point (also assuming that the table has some larger stacks where we have an edge).

For example. Early in an MTT, I have 20xBB and think about calling a push for my stack, that I know to be -.25BBs in CEV. (everyone else has 50xBB, blinds double at the next level)

-If the current level is going to last another 100 hands, I will fold.
-If the current level is going to last another 5 hands, I will call.

I think that having 20xBB at a 25xBB deep table, is worth .25BBs in value more than having 10xBB at the same table. Since it is unlikely that I will double in the next 5 hands (more likely in 100 hands) I think that the structure does change your play.

I realize that this doesnt necessarily address the speed of the events, since we will reach the point in the 100 hand level where you have 5 hands left and the plays are identical. But, in fast structured events, you may never have more than 10 hands until an increase, so you are talking about the opportunity cost on basically every hand, whereas it may effect 1% of your hands in a slower event.

I see Mason's point, and agree with it. But he is just catching the author on a technicality more than anything. The author is explaining in a simple way how to account for an quickly upcoming change in blinds. Mason is saying that you just use the same strategy you do in a slow event the 1% of the time you are faced with the same situation.

I see the arguement like this.
Arnold: Batting in hardball is much different than batting in arch pitch softball.
Mason: No its not, they are identical. You are dumb
Arnold: No way, you do all of the following differently.....
Mason: You would do all of those things the same if the hardball was pitched 12 feet high, and 35 miles per hour, so you are wrong...and dumb

** Thinking a little more, I am starting to side with the author. The cost of folding is higher when levels are short, since you will be faced with the need to double in the next 10 hands after the first increase, whereas in slower events, having 100 hands to double allows more selective play.