The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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Of course a player's edge is significantly smaller in a 'crapshoot' tournament, but, unless you are playing bingo instead of poker, it still exists. And, even if my edge is very small, I can make money in tournaments applying it.

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You are right, you can get a small edge if you are playing against sufficient numbers of players who are waiting for hands because they don't understand the necessity of aggression and faster play. The problem is that the worse the tournament, the faster the majority of players realize that they are short and out of time, and the faster they are forced to get in there with any hand.

Also, when a professional gambler has a choice, it makes sense to go for big edges rather than dinky edges. That is not only because big edges earn more money, but also because, other factors being equal, they tend to reduce flux. If you are playing with a small enough edge in poker tournaments, you may not actually live long enough to see the win from your edge if you have early negative flux.

The point is that optimal strategy based on tournament structure, in well-chosen tournaments, will give you a truly big edge.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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What Radar will learn is that these forums are the number one driver of poker book sales whether it is a book published by us or by someone else.

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My experience is different. Many of the biggest selling books, especially in gambling, are put out by hucksters. But, over the long run, good books last and find their audience because they are good. They get read because of word of mouth. When players read a book and find that it helps them to win, word gets out.

For example, Doyle Brunson's SuperSystem is considered a masterwork, and it would be considered a masterwork no matter who published it.

Players who actually put their own money on the line may have a lot of loyalty to a gambling authority figure, but overriding that is their desire to win.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

I think you put your ideas well. The only point I would clarify is that the goal is to properly play the underlying logic of M.

[Mason Malmuth]

Radar:

I feel badly for you. It's my opinion that your're not helping your cause. Perhaps you, Arnold, and myself should sit down together and go over some of this. My other comments follow below.

MM

The Poker Tournament Formular is not a confused rehash of Harrington. For it to be that, it would need to talk about cost per round (or M) and how that relates to your playing strategy. It does not do this. Also, your constant tying the Harrington books together with those by Cloutier is a diservice to not only your cause but to all the readers here. They have nothing in common and each present advice that is very different.

Also, let me state that use of the word "confused" may have been a little harsh in the sense that it implies that the information in this book will cause those who read it to lose money (which as you know is the case with most books on poker/gambling). As I have stated in other threads, I do believe that the advice in The Poker Tournament Formula will help most readers achieve a higher expectation in these tournaments. But again, that's because their M will frequently (but not always) be low and not the fact that the rounds are of a short time duration.

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McEvoy's treatment of proper strategy for Fast-Action Tournaments is three pages (which Mason calls chapters), starting on p. 264. He gives the following opinion on p. 264: "The length of the betting rounds should have an impact on your tournament strategy. The shorter the rounds, the faster you need to play; the longer the rounds, the more solid you can play." Then he spends two paragraphs describing what he means by fast-action, medium-action, and slow-action tournaments.


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First off, I was referring to his 1985 book, not his 2005 book (with Don Vines). Second, I gave the more recent book a review rating of 2, so I don't think very high of it either.

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By contrast, The Poker Tournament Formula provides a detailed basic strategy based on changing factors of chips, cards and position in relation to each other. The book provides the mathematical basis for the opinion of Arnold Snyder (and Tom McEvoy, Phil Gordon and others) that it is essential to play fast in fast tournaments. The Poker Tournament Formula is a 350 page, mathematically based case that structure alters optimal strategy.


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Again, and this will be the last time I will say it. The reason why Arnold is usually correct in his advice for these tournaments is that your chip position compared to your cost per round is usually poor. It has nothing to do with tournament speed.

Here is a quote from Harrington II, page 158.

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At this point, you might well wonder how players of each style approach the problems of the endgame. The answer is surprising to many people: No matter which style you naturally play, your approach to endgame problems will be very similar. The rising blinds and your shrinking stack size will force you to play in a super-aggressive way. Players who naturally play in a super-aggressive style tend to adapt more naturally and quickly to endgame problems, which I think is the main reason their tournament results tend to be better than players whose natural style is tighter. But by and large, the problems of the endgame tend to be problems of technique, not style. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no conservative players at the tail end of tournaments. Someone who’s waiting for premium starting hands with a short stack isn’t playing conservatively, he’s just playing badly.

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You need to understand that fast tournaments frequently (but not always) put players in this situation of having a short stack much more quickly. Thus your decisions again need to be made based on M and not on how short the betting levels might be.

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To return to Mason's comments, in response to my statement:"[The Poker Tournament Formula] is the only serious mathematically based discussion in the literature of optimal rebuy strategy" and Mason's response: "That's not true. Most of this was originally written up almost 20 years ago," I asked Mason to provide where this was written 20 years ago. He replies: "I'm not going to tell you. Normally I would, but after accusing me of misleading our readers you're just going to have to find it yourself."


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See my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics. (Most of this material originally appeared in articles in the old Poker Player newspaper in 1986.)

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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I haven't read the whole thread, but I will say that you have to take into account that you will encounter many more players willing to call with anything early in the tournament.

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In some tournaments where you start with a big stack relative to the blinds, you do see this. In his book, Arnold Snyder suggests adjusting your bet size in situations where you are getting too many calls.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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I also get the feeling that this thread has a slightly paranoic undertone [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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I get the feeling that this thread has a highly religious overtone. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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I get the feeling that this thread has a highly financial undertone [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

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That is why it is so important for players to make decisions based on the case presented, rather than on assertions or personalities. It is your money on the line.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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After reading Mason's statement I get the impression that he thinks that tournaments of all sorts and speeds are sufficiently covered in Harrington II.

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Correct. That is what he is asserting. I have made a case that his argument is limited to assertion, not proof, and that he is not correct in this assertion. So far, he has not refuted my case.

[Radar_O'Reilly]

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I also get the feeling that this thread has a slightly paranoic undertone [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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I get the feeling that this thread has a highly religious overtone. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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It's only a religious argument if it's a matter of deciding which deity or article of faith to defend. There can by definition be no correct answer in an argument based on faith.

But optimal gambling strategy need not be an article of faith. It remains an article of faith in a situation where the argument is a matter of divergent opinions. It is not an article of faith where a mathematical argument has been presented. Either the mathematical argument is right, or it is wrong.

I am still waiting for Mason to abandon assertion as a tactic in this debate, and address the math presented in The Poker Tournament Formula, which I have attempted to summarize here for players who have not read the book.

[Mason Malmuth]

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Quote:
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What Radar will learn is that these forums are the number one driver of poker book sales whether it is a book published by us or by someone else.


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My experience is different. Many of the biggest selling books, especially in gambling, are put out by hucksters.

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Well, times have changed. With the rise of these forums, the hucksters don't have a chance anymore.

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But, over the long run, good books last and find their audience because they are good. They get read because of word of mouth. When players read a book and find that it helps them to win, word gets out.

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I actually agree with this but you need to understand that these forums have supercharged this process and make the word of mouth process happen very quickly. Over the last three years we have had 9 different books make the Amazon top 100, and for the new ones, they usually get there before we even release the book. No one else can make a claim that even comes close to this. So everytime I say that The Poker Tournament Formula will help most readers improve their expectation, it probably improves your expectation for selling books.

You need to understand that it is our purpose to steer our readers to that which is good and away from that which is questionable. We don't care who the author or publisher is. We get up to (a little more than) 20,000 unique users daily. So word gets out very quickly.

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For example, Doyle Brunson's SuperSystem is considered a masterwork, and it would be considered a masterwork no matter who published it.

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SS, while terrific when originally published, is today a very outdated work, and SS2 is only marginally good. I sure hope you are reading and studying some of our books to assist in your poker play as well as some of the other good books that get mentioned on here.

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Players who actually put their own money on the line may have a lot of loyalty to a gambling authority figure, but overriding that is their desire to win.

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It looks like you need to become more familiar with this site. There are very many posters on here who are far more expert at their specialty than almost anyone else. We have plans to feauture some of these people in some of our upcoming books and in our Internet magazine. There is no other place like it on the Internet or anywhere for that manner.

MM

[Radar_O'Reilly]

Mason:[ QUOTE ]
Suppose your M will be cut in half in three hands. I agree that you may make an adjustment based on that. But what does that have to do with tournament speed. Three hands is three hands.

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When your M is going to be continuously dramatically reduced every few hands, that is a matter of overall tournament speed.

Mason:[ QUOTE ]
Say your M is 25 now but the next hand it will be 12, and the hand after that 7 so going from Green to Yellow to Orange.

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Harrington II does address this. If your M is 25 and you know that on the next hand it goes to 12 it might be right to make an adjustment. And if your M is 12 and on the next hand it goes to 12 it may be right to make another adjustment. But this can happen in a very slow tournament as well.

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It happens in a slow tournament when you get very close to a change in blind levels, and Harrington is correct to point out that you should start playing to the next level. But in a slow tournament, you have a lot of time before you get close to that change in blind levels. In fast tournaments, you don't have that time. Therefore, you need to make an overall strategy adjustment for tournament speed.



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A relating concept to this is that in fast tournaments, once you get into the Yellow Zone, it doesn't take many hands to get into the Orange and further in the Red Zone. So maybe in less than 10 hands you're down to the Red Zone and obliged to go all-in with 7/2o... I personally prefer to make the move while still in the green zone and hoping to stay there...


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Mason's comment: [ QUOTE ]
I agree that in the red zone it might be correct to move in with a seven-deuce. But it can't be correct to make this same play in the green zone.

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It is correct to make this same play in the green zone if you are likely to win with this play. Whether or not you are likely to win on a hand is not based strictly on cards. It depends on a number of factors. For the fast plays advised in The Poker Tournament Formula, the factors are discussed.