The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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Let's say you have an M of 30 and are dealt a small pair. Someone else who also has plenty of chips makes a small raise. You should play.

Now suppose it's a litle later in the tournament, perhaps after the levels have just increased and you have the exact same number of chips, have the same small pair, and are against the same opponent who still has plenty of chips, but now your M is 15. You should fold. Notice that this has nothing to do with tournament speed.

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In this example and others, Mason seeks to reduce overall tournament strategy to the question of how to play an individual hand. Then he carefully avoids any hand examples where a player's optimal strategy on a specific hand would be different in a fast tournament than in a slow one. And when another player provides an instance of a hand that would be played differently, he dodges the example.

Again, in sticking to "Formula M" Mason continues to violate the underlying logic of M. The underlying logic requires that a player have enough time to have a reasonable expectation of making the money he needs to stay in the green zone. The faster the tournament, the less time you have, and the more inadequate "Formula M" becomes for the purpose of making enough chips to stay in the green zone within the time allowed.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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One should mention, that this strategy hardly works online, because any amount of pre-flop raise gets at least 3 callers.

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The problem of getting too many calls on a normal sized raise tends to occur with either rabid blind defenders or very early in a tournament, when stack sizes are very large and blinds are very small. Snyder's book addresses the problem of raises that get too many calls from the blinds. He says to make bigger raises until you find the defender's level of discomfort.

There is a discussion on Snyder's web site about what to do when you are getting too many calls very early in the tournament because of the size of average stacks relative to very small blinds. One thing you don't do (in a fast tournament) is abandon fast play for conservative play.

[jackaaron]

Mason might actually never play online 5-50.00 tournaments, so it's possible he might not have a reason to ever consider speed. He could be playing in tournaments with many more starting chips, longer blinds levels, and so on. Of course, he's playing against tougher players though.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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It seems like some people reason like there is some kind off special intrinsic value of beeing in the green zone. All else beeing equal that may of course be the case but all else is rarely equal.

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Bjorn,

There is an intrinsic value of being in the green zone. Read the quotes from Harrington about being a complete player with all moves available to you. To say there is no intrinsic advantage is like saying that a carpenter with all his tools, hammer, saw, and screwdriver doesn’t have an advantage in accomplishing his job than a carpenter with only a hammer. That just doesn’t make sense.

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Al

I think you have missunderstood my point.

Of course a carpenter would be better off with hammer, saw, and screwdriver than just a hammer. My point is that is that you have to weigh the risks of beeing reduced to just a hammer vs the risks of not even having that.

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You are guaranteed risk when you enter a fast tournament. The problem is that conservative strategy players are playing with too great a concern for the risk of busting out, and way too little concern for the risk associated with getting short stacked. That is because players have been misled, by Mason for one, about the seriousness of the disadvantage associated with a short stack in a fast tournament.

Look at the math in Chapter 10 of The Poker Tournament Formula. The only way to win in the long run in situations where you are short-stacked relative to a big stack is to play with greater skill than your bigger-stacked opponent. This is a mathematical fact. And no player who is actually putting his money on the line can afford to ignore this fact.

And you cannot play with a greater edge than your big-stacked opponent if your skill options have been stripped away from you by the size of your stack relative to the cost of a round. Everyone gets the same proportion of good and bad hands over time. Poker edges come from playing with skill. The more skills you can deploy, the higher your overall edge will be.

So, you are doomed (over the long run) if you adopt an overall tournament strategy for which the most frequent result will be that you are left short-stacked and facing bigger stacked opponents at a time when high round costs relative to the size of your stack reduce or negate your ability to play with skill.

When the Titanic was sinking, many people were very scared of getting into the lifeboats. Many passengers actually resisted getting into them at first. They were scared to get into shaking lifeboats hanging by thin cables over black freezing water several stories below. Who wants to get into a rowboat in your pjs in the middle of the freezing northern Atlantic? The big ship seemed safer. It was huge, the lights were still on, the orchestra was still playing, it still offered food and water and warmth, and it was only listing slightly.

Obviously, passengers who refused to take the risks associated with getting into the lifeboats were wrong.

Once you truly understand the math, and recognize that your choice is between high risk and certain death, the choice becomes easier to make.

[BigAlK]

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So blinds are 100/200 and you go all-in from MP with 55 and 4500 chips?

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It's a possibility. If I tweak my example to my current M being 12 and I'll be down to 6 (4 or 5 after going thru the blinds in the next few hands) then yes, I probably would. I might consider other factors (my table image, what the players yet to act have been calling all ins with, etc) but what I'd be looking for is someone with 2 overs or possibly 1 over and 1 under (say a weak ace) to look me up. I'm at worst about a 54/46 favorite in that instance and more than willing to take the coin flip as a slight favorite to double up at this point. My only concern is the possibility of getting called by a higher pocket pair where I'd be a 4-1 dog. If I assume I'll get called by any pocket pair higher than my 5s and any pocket pair lower will fold (the worst case scenario for this) then there are 54 hands out of 1326 possible card combinations that will call with me being a significant dog. If 5 people are left to act then (if my math is right) I've got a 20% chance of being called by a higher PP (54/1326*5)=.20. If called by a higher PP 4 out of 5 times I'm going broke. Lets make the assumption that I'll always be called by exactly one person. To simplify the math I'll also assume that this person will always be the big blind so that I can never win more than 3700 chips (3600 from the BB which is an M of 12 at 100/200 plus the small blind). That means that:

16% of the time I'll be called by a higher PP and lose 3600

4% of the time I'll be called by a higher PP and win 3700

43% of the time I'll be called by 2 overs and win 3700

37% of the time I'll be called by 2 overs and lose 3600

(.16*-3600)+(.4*3700)+(.47*3700)+(.37*-3600)=+1311.

I realize that my assumption that I'll never be called by 2 people is faulty. However for the most part all my assumptions are worst case. I've discounted any possibility of fold equity by assuming that I'll always be called. It also ignores the slight possibility that a smaller PP might call thinking they'd be in a race with two overs. It also ignores the possibility that no PP higher than mine would fold - in reality the possibility of 66-99 folding is significant and these are almost half the higher PPs. The assumption that the person calling me will always be the BB also discounts the actual EV of this since some times I'll be called by someone in LP and win t200 more than in my computations. Making this move in this situation is clearly +EV.

[BigAlK]

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That is because players have been misled, by Mason for one, about the seriousness of the disadvantage associated with a short stack in a fast tournament.

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Radar,

Obviously I agree with you on most points. However I think this statement is misleading. My understanding of Mason's disagreement isn't that he doesn't understand the mathmatical basis for it being worthwhile to take slightly more risk to build a big stack early in a tournament. In fact he clearly does as evidenced by the essay he referenced in a prior post.

The difference in views appears to be that he doesn't believe that tournament speed is ever a factor in making the optimal decision. His essay makes the case for taking slight risks early to build a big stack by playing what many consider to be "too many hands" and his justification works without considering tournament speed.

Of the 3 items you list where you say one of them has to be disproved to refute Snyder's tournament speed theory I don't see how Mason could possibly argue #2 (based on the essay) or #3 (given Harrington's definition of being in the green zone making you "a full and complete player"). I'm not Mason and can't talk for him, only give my understanding of the points he trying to make, but as I see it #1 is the only one of your points that he might disagree with. I suppose he could also disagree that one of those three items has to be refuted to refute the Poker Tournament Formula.

Al

[Shandrax]

Somehow this discussion reminds me of an example from "Gambling Theory and other Topics". On page 12 Mason writes about rolling a dice 10000 times for $1 and then 1 time for $1 million. Statistians will tell you that there was only one roll, because the results are all clustered around that one big bet.

Fast tournaments are similar. From my limited experience I can tell that people are playing the biggest pots when their M is between 5-10. Statistically those 20 minutes when the stack is still in the green zone at the beginning of the tournament shouldn't matter.

[Mason Malmuth]

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That is because players have been misled, by Mason for one, about the seriousness of the disadvantage associated with a short stack in a fast tournament.


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I really don't think this is true. It's never been my style to mislead people. But thanks for the insult.

MM

[BigAlK]

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Somehow this discussion reminds me of an example from "Gambling Theory and other Topics". On page 12 Mason writes about rolling a dice 10000 times for $1 and then 1 time for $1 million. Statistians will tell you that there was only one roll, because the results are all clustered around that one big bet.

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That makes perfect sense. If you changed this to coinflip instead of dice roll then at the end of the session you'll be either ahead or behind a million dollars, give or take $10,000. The $10,000 variance isn't statistically significant.

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Fast tournaments are similar. From my limited experience I can tell that people are playing the biggest pots when their M is between 5-10. Statistically those 20 minutes when the stack is still in the green zone at the beginning of the tournament shouldn't matter.

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But they do, and this is the crux of the matter. There comes a point in all fast tournaments and many slow tournaments where due to the ratio of blinds to average stack size the tournament has become a crapshoot. If all the survivors reach this point with the same stack size then statistically they'll all have an equal chance of winning. If we say for our example that this happens when reaching the final table and it will have 10 people then everyone has a 10% chance of finishing in each of the top 10 positions. When a tournament reaches this point (still assuming equal stack sizes) then skill no longer influences the outcome, only short term luck in the cards you're dealt and whether they hold up or not. In the book there is a method to rate how fast a tournament is and lays out a strategy for each. Certain tournament speeds are essentially crapshoots from the beginning. But for those that are slower than these, but still fast there is a distinct advantage to reaching the "crapshoot" portion with a bigger than average stack. The best time to build that stack is when your opponents are playing the traditional conservative strategy.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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That is because players have been misled, by Mason for one, about the seriousness of the disadvantage associated with a short stack in a fast tournament.


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I really don't think this is true. It's never been my style to mislead people. But thanks for the insult.

MM

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Players are out there losing their money in fast tournaments because of playing a strategy that does not suit fast tournaments. Because my own living is on the line with my gambling, I take this very seriously. You are actively ignoring evidence that your assertion is incorrect, when other peoples' money is on the line.

This, in my opinion, is irresponsible of you, Mason. And acting hurt about a perceived insult may pull in the troops to defend you, but does not resolve the problem.

Regarding BigA/K's post: It is true that Mason's essay suggests that there are benefits to playing a more aggressive strategy in all tournaments, regardless of speed. I absolutely agree with the idea that building a big stack is good in any tournament, and the reason for my agreement has never been discussed more clearly than in The Poker Tournament Formula. The book shows clearly why a chip advantage is a real mathematical advantage, and shows that unless your opponent really lacks skill in comparison with you, you are in trouble once he gets a chip advantage over you. The problem again is that while you have a choice between a fast and conservative strategy in a slow tournament, because you will have enough chips for long enough to outplay a weak opponent, the conservative option is not viable in a fast tournament. It's not viable because you simply don't average enough premium hands to earn the chips you need in the time available for earning those chips.

The Point #1 that BigA/K suggests Mason may want to refute is the point that, in a fast tournament, you are more likely to build the stack you need to stay in the green zone if you play a fast strategy rather than a slow strategy. I don't believe Mason will actually try to refute this, because if he does he can be easily refuted right back with the mathematics of hand frequencies (Arnold provides considerable discussion of this in the book). But everyone in here with much practical experience in fast tournaments (or even cash games) already knows this is true. Players using conservative strategy aren't playing many hands. They are waiting for a small percentage of hands, on which they are not guaranteed to get action, and in the meantime, in fast tournaments, are quickly getting blinded off.

By the time they are forced to start playing faster, they will have to survive so many highly risky confrontations for all or most of their chips that the math will simply eat them away, especially since they will be increasingly forced into these confrontations with weak hands. Even if you somehow manage to get in there as a 2 to 1 favorite on all of your hands (unlikely when you are forced to play weaker starting hands at 10-player tables), you are going to be in trouble if you can't survive that 1 out of 3 times you're going to lose on such hands. But a smart player has already pointed this out earlier in this thread.

People in here who have never tried a fast strategy seem to imagine it to be much riskier than it really is. The essence of the strategy, as Arnold explains repeatedly in his book, is that you are not so much betting on how great your own cards are as on the fact that your opponents' cards are statistically not likely to be all that great either. That is what makes it a sound mathematical strategy and not a crapshoot.