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.

[BigAlK]

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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.


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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.

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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.

[nath]

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This is from the part posted in the books forum:

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Success in fast tournaments is not primarily about exploiting weak/tight players. And my book shows mathematically and in great detail why it is not primarily about playing according to the current size of your chip stack relative to the current blinds/antes. It is about making enough money during the portions of the tournament where you have the greatest control over your results to go into the crapshoot portions of a tournament with an advantage. Every fast tournament (and very many slow tournaments with large field sizes) turns into a crapshoot at a very predictable point in the tournament, which my book shows players how to predict.

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Doesn't this sound a little bit like Nath's online (and maybe not online) tournament strategy? Playing lots of hands early for small pots and outplaying opponents post-flop etc. to make build a big stack. Then when the fast structure catches up to others, you have a big stack to beat them around with (or you already busted).

This really seems to make sense to me.

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It's not too far off. I like to start building my stack immediately. In slower, deeper structures, this leans more toward identifying bad players and making big hands that they will pay off or just picking up the pots from them in position when they act weak. In faster structures, it's identifying any spot where I think I can win the pot, and getting in there and winning it..

The idea is to have enough chips to keep putting pressure on people-- the more chips you have the easier it is to accumulate chips. And when the tournament gets to the stage where it's a preflop move-in fest, you have enough chips to gamble in the necessary spots, and survive if you lose, and knock out other people if you win.