Upcoming Article Will Clear Up Snyder Silliness

[David Sklansky]

Next month's magazine will contain an article by me that explains why Arnold Snyder's small tournament advice is usually right but often for the wrong reason. I want to summarize the key points now lest anyone think that the ideas in the article were spurred by something someone else writes in the next three weeks. Briefly:

1. In tournaments with more than one prize, the value of each successive chip you obtain is less than the previous one unless you are a bad player or have a very short stack.

2. The above syndrome is more pronounced as you get close to, or into the money.

3. The above syndrome #1 is even more pronounced if you are an expert player and is true even if the tournament is winner take all.

4. If you are not near the money and have a very short stack the concavity of the curve reverses. In other words your EV can more than double if you double up, even if you are an expert.

5. In order for this to occur it is necessary, but not sufficient, that your chances of doubling up before going broke is less than 50%.

6. The above occurs when you don't have enough chips to wait for a properly playable hand.

7. When blinds go up fast, the above situation occurs more often. So if you take coin flips indiscrimately in these kinds of tournaments you won't be that wrong that often. Much better though to do it only those times you should.

8.Although good player's extra chips decrease in value as they are added to their stack, they may still be above face value. Thus it might be correct to add on y chips with x chips in your stack even though it wouldn't be right to risk y chips getting even money if you were only a slight favorite (because the chips you are risking are worth much more than face value and somewhat more than the y chips you stand to gain.)

Got it? I'll answer questions after the article comes out.

[betgo]

I hope it is OK to respond before the article is published, and I feel a little funny answering Sklansky.

I think a lot of this is true, and I think people often underestimate the importance of survival in late tournament situations.

However, if it is to players advantage not to take gambles for all their chips at the final table, isn't it an advantage to be the big stack and have everyone easily covered. You can make a resteal that is cEV+ for the raiser to call, but is $EV-, since he would be gambling for all his chips. Say you have 800K at the final table and tht otheer players have 200K, 150K, 50K, 35K, and 20K. Due to payout structure, you can reraise almost any raise the medium stacks make, and they can't call.

Also, people often play weak/tight late in a tournament. For example, a professional player says he folded a flush draw and open endeded straight draw 3-handed at this yer's WSOP FT. Now the fold was clearly cEV- even without knowing his opponents cards or the result. Also, the different in payout between 1st and 2nd was 3 times that between 2nd and 3rd, plus endorsement packages and prestige from winning the ME. However, when someone is risking $2M, he often makes an overcautious decision.

A big stack allows you take advantage of cash and final table bubbles, when many players play in an irrational weak/tight manner. Also, in general, people will often let big stacks steal blinds and steal pots.

Therefore, taking a couple of coin flips before the latest stages of a tournament in order to become a big stack may be adavantageous. Sure you are 3-1 to bust out, but in a large tournament with 1000+ entries gambling to create a big stack that will give you a decent shot at the final table, may be very $EV+.

Now I agree for example as a relatively short stack ITM, it is often better to try to survive as long as possible. To survive you generally need to make steal or resteal moves depending on your stack size. Weak players tend to take survival too far as short stacks and get blinded out, which gives survival strategies a bad name.

Also, as a big stack with 20 players or less left, it is generally to your disadvantage to gamble for all your chips. Survival very late in the tournament is similar to for SNGs with 5-3-2 payouts. The payout structure makes gambling disadvantageous.

[uDevil]

[ QUOTE ]

I hope it is OK to respond before the article is published, and I feel a little funny answering Sklansky.


[/ QUOTE ]

I recently had the audacity to say his definition of intelligence was self-serving. I now apologize. I'm sorry, David. All the more so because I don't "got it". Have you ever considered using graphs?

[betgo]

I meant it seriously that I don't know if I am qualified to dispute Sklansky on poker matters. However, I have played 30 online MTTs in a day and I have some idea of the dynamics. I don't know if his theory takes full account of the advantages to having a big stack.

[David Sklansky]

If your stack is largest enough, and you play well enough, such that you are better than 50% to double up before going broke, your chips lose value. Period.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
If your stack is largest enough, and you play well enough, such that you are better than 50% to double up before going broke, your chips lose value. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is like saying that Newton's theories are always true. I am not disputing the principle.

However, having a large stack can be a major advantage that can help build an even larger stack and so on. This can be much more important than issues of payout structures and so on.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

[ QUOTE ]
If your stack is largest enough, and you play well enough, such that you are better than 50% to double up before going broke, your chips lose value. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sklansky is simply wrong. Period. And what's really irresponsible is that he and Malmuth don't care that their bad theory and advice is costing players money. All Sklansky cares about is protecting his own reputation as an "expert." But Sklansky is not a poker expert. No one is an expert an gambling who does not test their theories at the tables.

It is very important that players realize not only that Sklansky is wrong in his math, but that he hooks his tournament theory (and lots of the rest of his poker theory) to irrelevant math--that is, math that has nothing whatsoever to do with the gambling decision at hand. His books deliver the semblance of math and logic, without real math and logic.

Players who are actively playing in poker tournaments already know they are losing with Sklansky's advice. And they are losing in fast tournaments if they are playing according to Harrington's M strategy as well. Even if they are playing in slow tournaments, they will learn quickly that Harrington's M strategy is weaker than the strategies in Snyder's Poker Tournament Formula.

Sklansky, unlike Arnold Snyder, does not test his poker tournament theories at the tables. Arnold did test Sklansky's poker tournament theories at the tables, with his own money, and his results, which are statistically significant, showed that Sklansky's poker tournament advice is losing advice. The reason Sklansky's poker tournament advice is losing advice is because it is based on fallacious theory.

By contrast, Arnold Snyder's results, and now the results of a large test group of players, show that his own poker tournament advice is winning advice. These results go way past the minimum required for statistical significance.

Again, make no mistake about it. Sklansky's losing poker tournament advice is based on mistaken and irrelevant math leading to false theory. More of Sklansky's and Malmuth's errors will be addressed in Arnold Snyder's response to Sklansky's coming article.

[Knockwurst]

David -- I am not an expert, far from it. With that, I hope you will expound on:

1. In tournaments with more than one prize, the value of each successive chip you obtain is less than the previous one unless you are a bad player or have a very short stack.

2. The above syndrome is more pronounced as you get close to, or into the money.

This seems contrary to my limited experience, particularly in online tournaments.

Say three spots are paid in a NL SNG with four players left. The blinds are t150-300, and three players have the same number of chips, say t2500, with the final player on the big stack with the remaining chips.

It would seem that each chip one of the even stacks was able to obtain would be worth more than the previous chips by virtue of the fact that the player could fold into the money where the other three can't. Additionally, if the one of the even stacks and t2500+1 were to go all in with the big stack and lose, t2500+1 ends up in the money.

I know this example is contrived and maybe falls under the caveat that rule 1 and 2 don't necessarily apply to short stacks, but isn't it true that in my example each additional chip increases in value at the bubble?

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
David -- I am not an expert, far from it. With that, I hope you will expound on:

1. In tournaments with more than one prize, the value of each successive chip you obtain is less than the previous one unless you are a bad player or have a very short stack.

2. The above syndrome is more pronounced as you get close to, or into the money.

This seems contrary to my limited experience, particularly in online tournaments.

Say three spots are paid in a NL SNG with four players left. The blinds are t150-300, and three players have the same number of chips, say t2500, with the final player on the big stack with the remaining chips.

It would seem that each chip one of the even stacks was able to obtain would be worth more than the previous chips by virtue of the fact that the player could fold into the money where the other three can't. Additionally, if the one of the even stacks and t2500+1 were to go all in with the big stack and lose, t2500+1 ends up in the money.

I know this example is contrived and maybe falls under the caveat that rule 1 and 2 don't necessarily apply to short stacks, but isn't it true that in my example each additional chip increases in value at the bubble?

[/ QUOTE ]

Look at it this way. Ten man SnG with a typical 50/30/20 prize pool.

Four players left with all even stacks.

Each player has players equity is 1/4 of the prize pool, 25%.

Now you bust out one player, you have half the chips in play, but your equity is not 50% as you are no where near a lock to win.

In fact your equity is only 38% of the prize pool.

[mornelth]

[ QUOTE ]
5. In order for this to occur it is necessary, but not sufficient, that your chances of doubling up before going broke is less than 50%.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is the point that will need some explanation and expounding on in the article.

if you are the BEST player in the tournament - you should ALMOST NEVER take a 50/50 double-nothing proposition, since you can probably win those chips with less risk just outplaying your opponents. If you are THE WORST player - you should ALWAYS take a 50/50 (Re: Kill Phil, TPFAP's "System"). Clearly, 99% of us reading and posting here and playing poker are somewhere in between the two extremes. Therefore one's willingness to take various gambles should be dictated by the reasonable expectation of the number of opportunities to chip up one is likely to get before the blinds get too high. Experts will find or create more of these opportunities, mediocre players will find create some of those, and poor players will probably miss the ones dangling right in front of them. WRT speed of the tournament - in a "fast" tournament all classes of players will have LESS TIME to find/create profitable opportunities before blinds get too high, so as the "speed" of an event escalates - all players should be somewhat MORE risk-loving than their usual style. Am I way off here?...

Suggestion to anyone who thinks I'm off my rocker - get together with some of your buds and play an STT or an MTT if you have enough players. Make the blinds go up every orbit, i.e. if I started on the button - blinds go up every time I get the button. What's the optimal strategy BESIDES "fold my way to pushbot stage and then pushbot...."