X-Post from Books: Discussion about Poker Tournament Formula

[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.