The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[bozzer]

I just worked my way through the whole thread, thanks to most of the participants for a very interesting discussion.

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Simple extreme example to make it easy for anyone to grasp. Blinds are 25/50, your stack is 1,000. You are on the button and your M is 13. Blinds go up after each hand. Next hand, your M is 7. Next hand your M is 4. Next hand your M is 3. Next hand your M is 2. You only been dealt 5 hands, you've folded each of them, you haven't paid an ante, and you haven't paid a blind. Your M has dropped from 13 to 2. And you think that won't affect your strategy?

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This is the scenario I kept thinking of when I read all Mason's reubuttals, and was going to post it myself when I got to the end of the thread. Clearly in this situation your 'dynamic' (and rather harder to quantify) M is much more important than your 'formula' or 'static' M.

Now M as HOH defines it is clearly not meant for this sort of game, so let's go to a slightly less extreme example, where blinds go up every orbit, but you start with an M of 30. I think it's clear that here limping 44 on the button would be a terrible idea, since even though you are currently in the green zone every blind is precious. So it seems that tournament speed does influence this less extreme example. And this example, while extreme, isn't that far off some turbos.

If Mason is still checking this thread, I wonder if he could make any comment on these scenarios where, to me at least, it seems that not considering your dynamic M would be a problem.

Lastly, I just wanted to clarify my understanding of M in relation to implied odds vs survival. My understanding is that it is a shorthand proxy for both your implied odds given normal raise sizes and your survival value (how many rounds you have left at the current level).

[smbruin22]

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Now M as HOH defines it is clearly not meant for this sort of game, so let's go to a slightly less extreme example, where blinds go up every orbit, but you start with an M of 30. I think it's clear that here limping 44 on the button would be a terrible idea, since even though you are currently in the green zone every blind is precious. So it seems that tournament speed does influence this less extreme example. And this example, while extreme, isn't that far off some turbos.

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that's something i wrestle with.... you have the implied odds as you mentioned, but i don't agree with the precious chips argument. when the blinds have gone up 4 or 8 times in short order, it won't matter that you limped when the blinds were really small. and if the blinds move up really fast, you'll be going all-in on some very dicey situation. so you may as well have used a very small amount of chips to try to hit a set. i differentiate drawing to set and drawing to flush/straight. the latter can use up huge amounts of chips (hopefully i didn't misread your comment, you might have meant flush/straight).

for certain, alot of people in this thread initially totally missed the fact that your M can be dynamic where you have to be pretty open to all-in opportunities. which is pretty much the entire point of arnold's book.

one thing i don't think is made clear enough is that faster the M, the more the crazy plays are correct. if blinds go up every hand, opening all-in with 55 or KTo in mid-position looks good (not sure if that's within arnold's more aggressive advice)

[WRX]

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Simple extreme example to make it easy for anyone to grasp. Blinds are 25/50, your stack is 1,000. You are on the button and your M is 13. Blinds go up after each hand. Next hand, your M is 7. Next hand your M is 4. Next hand your M is 3. Next hand your M is 2. You only been dealt 5 hands, you've folded each of them, you haven't paid an ante, and you haven't paid a blind. Your M has dropped from 13 to 2. And you think that won't affect your strategy?

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This is the scenario I kept thinking of when I read all Mason's reubuttals, and was going to post it myself when I got to the end of the thread. Clearly in this situation your 'dynamic' (and rather harder to quantify) M is much more important than your 'formula' or 'static' M.

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Both Mason and Dan Harrington have acknowleged that in an extreme example like this, where the blinds will go up in just one, two, or three hands, strategy is greatly influenced by your impending M, and not just your current M. The debate has been over less extreme situations, such as fast tournaments in which the blinds go up every 15 minutes.

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Now M as HOH defines it is clearly not meant for this sort of game, so let's go to a slightly less extreme example, where blinds go up every orbit, but you start with an M of 30. I think it's clear that here limping 44 on the button would be a terrible idea, since even though you are currently in the green zone every blind is precious.

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Why a terrible idea? By limping, you risk a very small part of your stack, while your implied odds are high. (You are hoping to flop a set and double up.) Surely this is an example of the kind of play as to which strategy is not much affected by the speed of the tournament, or if such is the case, the fact that the blinds will increase very soon.

[Mason Malmuth]

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Both Mason and Dan Harrington have acknowleged that in an extreme example like this, where the blinds will go up in just one, two, or three hands, strategy is greatly influenced by your impending M, and not just your current M. The debate has been over less extreme situations, such as fast tournaments in which the blinds go up every 15 minutes.

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I recently had dinner with Dan and we talked about this very subject. Dan's opinion was that having the blinds go up every 15 minutes as compared to every 60 minutes should have absolutely no effect.

As I have stated many times before, and in which you continue to ignore, is that it is my opinion that Snyder was such an inexperienced poker player that he didn't understand that certain plays were working in these fast tournaments not because of speed, but because of the very low skill level of many of his opponents. He hit upon some of the right plays because he's a good observer, but didn't understand the complexities of poker to really see why they worked.

MM

[VK_Rick]

I'm very late to this thread, but I find myself returning time and again to these concepts. The way I'm starting to think about it, when we talk about M, we may not always be talking about what we think we are. In my mind, M (and the strategy decisions it impacts) can be broken down into two components:

(1) the portion of your stack the current blinds represent; and

(2) the number of orbits you can play before being blinded off.

On the one hand, when we focus on the first component, I agree with Mason that the speed of the tournament makes little if any difference. Your M is your M. Your implied odds on the hand in question are what they are wihtout regard for how fast the blinds are going up, the percentage of your stack that you must risk on speculative hands is static, etc.

On the other hand, I think the dynamic is different when analyzing the second component of M. If we want to know the number of orbits we can play before being blinded off, the calculation is more complicated than the "M" calculation we perform at the table. Is is a function of hands per hour, frequency with which the blinds go up, and the magnitude of the increases when they do go up. When viewed this way, "fast" tournaments have a very different "true M" than "slow" ones, even when the calculation we perform at the table yields the same result.

For example, suppose you have T2100 with blinds of t50/t100. On its face, your M is 14. But you do not have 14 orbits to play. If binds never increase, you have 14 orbits, but no structure provides that many hands without blinds increasing. Even playing 9-handed at 35 hands per hour, you can only make about 8 orbits in a long, two-hour blind level. So if you are at the start of such a level, you will get 8 orbits at those blinds and 3 orbits at t100/t200, meaning only 11 orbits before being blinded off. If rounds last only one hour, you will have more like 4 orbits at t50/t100, 4 orbits at t100/t200, and 1 orbit at t150/t300, for a total of 9. With 15 minute rounds, you may have only 5 orbits left (I'm too lazy to do the actual calculation; it may be even less).

Thus, when analyzing the second component of M, in the faster tournament, you actually have a lower M right from the beginning. Moreover, as the speed of a tournament increases, the difference between your "true M" (orbits you can play) and the calculated M you make at the table becomes greater.

This has to impact optimum play, and while I have read only Harrington's books, not Snyder's, I suspect this phenomenon concerning the second component of M may lie at the heart of some of the dispute.

If this is obvious and rambling, I apologize, but ever since I found this thread a few days ago, I find myself coming back time and again to the concept, and finally decided to write some of my thoughts down.

[smbruin22]

VK_rick, no need to apologize, in fact one of the best entries in this whole thread.

i wrestle with this thinking too. and i agree there are two elements to M, if not more.... there are your two listed elements, and then there's risk/reward for stealing the blinds too (although it sort of relates to argument #1), and then it somewhat matters what your M is relative to others.

to the other posters argument, i don't think you need to conserve chips that much when your M is large but declining very quickly. i think you have to conserve chips 20 minutes later when your M is alot lower

[rokstedy]

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Yes, blinds are low, but they ARE worth stealing, because you have such a low M to begin with.

Second, even with low blinds, the pot will be worth competing for.

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It's debateable how much it's worth fighting for low blinds (I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you here.) But keep in mind that one important thing that results from some of Snyder's tactics is that you will be winning not just blinds, but *pots*, preferrably heads up where you win the chips that your opponent raised with or called a raise with. Obviously this is more substantial than just blind money. And of course he gives advice on which types of players to try this against (no, not passive players that will not fold AQ postflop, and not players that would not have raised without a big pair preflop to begin with.)

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This, to me, was the big eye opener for me. I had always been aware of stealing blinds to stay ahead of the curve. But there are often times where you don't get to be first in to a pot and dont get to make that move.

But the TRUE benefit of this strategy is that he's more or less DARING you to be bolder than that even! He's saying, call that 2x raise on the button with J6o. If he checks, bet. Robusto. If he bets weakly, raise!! Robusto!!

These are risky, yes. But the bottome line is to either accumulate chips or go on to the next tourney.

I know this may sound like an opening line from a penthouse forum letter, but....I really and truly did win the 2nd tournament I entered after exploring this strategy. 1,000 player field to boot.

[SplawnDarts]

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But the TRUE benefit of this strategy is that he's more or less DARING you to be bolder than that even! He's saying, call that 2x raise on the button with J6o. If he checks, bet. Robusto. If he bets weakly, raise!! Robusto!!


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Wasn't that already in everyone's playbook?

I think his book is a mix of the obvious, the correct and previously published, and the highly suspicious. You could arguably get the good without the bad by going elsewhere, but you could also do worse.

[Jan]

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But the TRUE benefit of this strategy is that he's more or less DARING you to be bolder than that even! He's saying, call that 2x raise on the button with J6o. If he checks, bet. Robusto. If he bets weakly, raise!! Robusto!!


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Wasn't that already in everyone's playbook?



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All the authors tell you your cards don't matter and you have to pick your spots, but they never really tell you how to pick those spots. Snyder does.

[smbruin22]

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I think his book is a mix of the obvious, the correct and previously published, and the highly suspicious. You could arguably get the good without the bad by going elsewhere, but you could also do worse.

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gosh, if that's the criteria, i'll be having a bonfire at my place later.