harrington talks about tournament speed in his books too...

[WRX]

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The only place where I think tournaments speed makes a difference is my willingness to push small edges or take coinflips. In the case of a fast structure, my chances to double up without coin flipping is reduced because there are less hands available to me.

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Bingo. That's 99% of it, IMHO.

That's the objective part, anyway. There's also a subjective consideration. If other players are letting themselves be influenced by the tournament structure, such that their play is consistently wrong--their play is too timid, or it's too loose--you can take advantage. That is an indirect effect of the tournament's speed, although not an effect that necessarily follows from tournament speed. Any book or other advice that recognizes common patterns of exploitable play is going to be valuable.

[smbruin22]

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The only place where I think tournaments speed makes a difference is my willingness to push small edges or take coinflips. In the case of a fast structure, my chances to double up without coin flipping is reduced because there are less hands available to me.

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very well said!!... and the other thing i'd add (and i haven't been able to figure it out), but in these tournaments sometimes your opponents just have horrible calling ranges (i think harrington and other books have conditioned us to excellent opponents). people are definitely getting smarter though.

i would also add that there's a point where arnold thinks tourneys are too fast and no real advantage (not sure i agree, but certainly don't strongly disagree). and i think tons of posters here would think that the speed tourneys that arnold wrote for are a waste of time (and i'm never quite sure what his default speed for his plays is). hope that made sense

Bingo. That's 99% of it, IMHO.

That's the objective part, anyway. There's also a subjective consideration. If other players are letting themselves be influenced by the tournament structure, such that their play is consistently wrong--their play is too timid, or it's too loose--you can take advantage. That is an indirect effect of the tournament's speed, although not an effect that necessarily follows from tournament speed. Any book or other advice that recognizes common patterns of exploitable play is going to be valuable.

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