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

[jordiepop]

I know it is an old issue, but harrington does not deny the fact that speed is a factor in decisions. In hoh vol 1, he has MANY examples where he says that in a wsop type tournament you can do this with X hand. but at these stakes with the blinds rising so fast, you have to adjust your play, and play X hand much more aggresively. " time is not a luxury" is one line that sticks out in my head.



all in all i dont see why there has been such a hard line drawn between the snyder camp and the harrington camp. after reading hoh 1 after reading ptf , i see that harrington has a nice balance of adjusting your play to structure, and snyder goes over board with it.



has anyone else noticed this theme in harringtons books, or is it just me?

[smbruin22]

jordie, you almost had it right....

hoh is about slow tourneys, snyder is about fast tourneys... maybe H makes some comments about faster structures, but 99.9% of the book is about slower structures (and his problems don't tell you the structures, they just assume slow).

snyder's book (whether people think it's good or not) is exclusively about fast tournaments....

case in point, people point to harrington's zones like they're cast in stone. but they're based on long levels. citing harrington levels as to why you did something in your local casino early bird tournament is completely wrong (a trap i fall into myself too)....

[BigAlK]

I think Smbruin is mostly right. I constantly find myself arguing for (or as an apologist for) the PTF camp on 2+2 and in a similiar role (arguing that Harrington/2+2 are being unfairly maligned) on the PTF forums. FWIW, here is the way I see it.

Snyder's PTF is specifically designed for fast tournaments and he'll be the first to tell you that as the speed of the tournaments you play are slower you need to be more selective in the use of some of his more aggressive techniques. There are several reasons for this. One is that slower tournaments (those with what Snyder calls a high skill level) give opponents more time to get a handle on what you're up to. If you aren't mixing up your play you'll get trapped by observant players. In a fast tournament most of your opponents will be broke before they figure you out. This doesn't mean that Snyder is of no use in slow tournaments. It does mean that you need to figure out what you've learned from Snyder and how it applies to slower tournaments on your own. The "skill" in fast tournaments is knowing how to play an extremely aggressive style to take advantage of the generally tight play of other players as well as avoiding trouble when your opponent has a hand he's willing to go broke with.

In HOH1, Harrington lays a foundation for a tight, conservative style. At the start of the book he discusses the various styles (IIRC he calls them conservative, aggressive, and super aggressive) and discusses the pros and cons of each. He makes it clear that he believes the conservative style is best for the new player who is just learning because it gives him a solid foundation and makes postflop play easier. However Harrington makes it clear that there are reasons to mix things up. He even goes so far as to say that your largest pots are likely to be won when you're playing a style that isn't your norm.

In HOH2 Harrington's short stack play ramps up the aggression. He says that when you become short every player has to play the aggressive style. I agree that Harrington alludes to adjusting for soon to be rising blinds implying that this should be a consideration in your strategy. However the tournaments that Harrington generally plays and what he appears to base his strategy on are slower tournaments. In spite of using online tournaments in some of his examples the tournament speed rarely enters into the discussion. Mason says that in a discussion with Harrington he said that tournament speed shouldn't impact strategy. (This of course appears to contridict some of what is published in the HOH series.)

I see Snyder as the benchmark for fast tournaments and Harrington as the same for slow tournaments. There is something to be learned from both regardless of where the tournaments you play fall on the speed continuium. The waters on this issue are continually muddied due to people from both camps painting the issues as black and white. They aren't.

[smbruin22]

BigAlK, good stuff... and i'd think harrington realizes his stuff isn't that applicable to really fast tourneys, although i have no doubt he knows the adjustments.... some of it does flow from that mason comment about M being all that matters (and can't remember if harrington had said that to him, that would be hearsay anyway). i think mason spoke before he thought deeply in that instance, something that has afflicted us all at some time or other.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
some of it does flow from that mason comment about M being all that matters (and can't remember if harrington had said that to him, that would be hearsay anyway). i think mason spoke before he thought deeply in that instance, something that has afflicted us all at some time or other.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried to find the post without success, but I'm sure it's in the archives somewhere. Maybe someone better with the search function can find it.

In any case in one post Mason said something along the lines of "I'm seeing Dan later and I'll ask him." Then he followed up with another post basically saying "I asked and he said speed doesn't matter." I agree it is hearsay and think how the question was posed would make a big difference in the answer. I'm sure, given the chance, that I could easily pose the question in such a way as to almost guarantee a different answer.

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
people point to harrington's zones like they're cast in stone. but they're based on long levels. citing harrington levels as to why you did something in your local casino early bird tournament is completely wrong (a trap i fall into myself too)....

[/ QUOTE ] I disagree. M is mostly important because it is a nice guideline as to what you have to risk vs. what you stand to gain (ratio of your stack to the blinds and antes). I believe the value of M is the same in fast tournaments and slow ones. If a push or fold is +EV in a slow tournament based on M, then it is also the same in a fast tourny.

Remember, however, that hand ranges also affect the EV of your decisions, and that your opponent's ranges might change based on the structure of the tournament as well. In my mind, this is a far more important thing to account for than the number of rounds I still have left before being blinded out.

Harrington isn't about tournaments with long levels- it's about tournaments in general and the only distinction he makes is near the beginning of book 1. Several of his examples come from online tournaments, which are almost all fast structured, yet in none of those problems does he take into account the speed of the tournament.

Personally, I believe that for the most part tournament speed doesn't matter. A move is either +EV or -EV, and the speed of the levels doesn't really affect this. 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. Because of that, I am far more willing to take a 45%-55% chance to double up in a fast structured tournament when I believe I have a less than 45% chance to double up if I pass on the conflip. Usually this isn't even a -EV move because there is usually an overlay involved, but I'll admit that even at 20BBs I'd probably be willing to get it all in with AKo vs QQ if the structcure of the tournament is fast because I believe I probably have a less than 45% chance of doubling up if I pass.

At any rate, my point is this: I think in most cases tournament speed doesn't affect the $EV of most moves. The above scenario is an exception in MY mind, but I could be wrong. I think that make huge adjustments based on tournament speed is likely incorrect, though, and taking a bunch of -EV gambles in the name of "fast tournament play" is spew rather than good strategy.

[smbruin22]

jeff, good comments, but i think you're basically contradicting yourself there (or in other words, basically making the argument for arnold's book - you don't necessarily have time to wait for a "great" opportunity, so that 45-55 flip doesn't look so bad, especially with some sort of overlay, often large overlay).... and i think harrington's book is completely geared for slower tournaments, like ones that take days and have huge prize pools.

[quadaces9999]

from what i understand from arnold snyder is that in a fast tournament you should be wiling to gamble in the early part of the tourney even when your M is high.

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
from what i understand from arnold snyder is that in a fast tournament you should be wiling to gamble in the early part of the tourney even when your M is high.

[/ QUOTE ]

As massive oversimplications go this is better than some, but by skipping the how and why misses the point. The post regarding taking the slightly -EV side of a coinflip is a better comparison although somewhat lacking.

The key is to be the aggressor in the hand. Assume you've got two high cards (or plan to represent you do with the way you play the hand) and you believe your opponent in the hand has a small to medium pair. This is an example of the 55/45 "coinflip" in the other post. Assuming you and your opponent both have a healthly stack (more than 30bbs or an M of 20+) Snyder isn't suggesting that you should try to get all-in pre-flop, knowingly taking the bad side of a coinflip. However he would advise that you raise pre-flop to take control of the hand and then continue firing on each street. If you've got position on your opponent and he doesn't hit his set will he stay with the hand when overs the might have hit your hand come on the flop? You don't want to go to showdown. In fact it is preferable to win the pot without doing so. Equity considerations of the two starting hands if they go to showdown don't matter if there is no showdown.

The reason for the additional aggression early is to build a stack early so you can be pickier later. That way you won't be forced into taking the short end of a coinflip for all your chips later.

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
but i think you're basically contradicting yourself there (or in other words, basically making the argument for arnold's book - you don't necessarily have time to wait for a "great" opportunity, so that 45-55 flip doesn't look so bad, especially with some sort of overlay, often large overlay)....

[/ QUOTE ]I noted the coin flip as an exception to my belief that tournament speed does not affect the EV of a play. I do think that it might be +$EV to take a slightly -cEV situation in a fast tournament, but honestly this is a situation that so rarely comes up it hardly affects my play at all. Truth is, you never know when you're on the bad side of a coin flip even with AK because all you can do is put an opponent on a range, and usually ranges that include JJ also include AQ. So even though I can make a concession that this might be the case in theory, I would not base my entire strategy on the notion that it might be OK to take SLIGHTLY -EV situations in faster structures.

Anyway, an exception is not a contradiction. My belief is that the EV of most situations is independent of tournament speed.

And for the record- once you start talking overlays it isn't even close. That's not a coin flip nor is it slightly -EV. Calling off your stack with good pot odds is good poker, and Harrington certainly advocates this.

My main point is this: if re-raising in position is +EV in a fast tournament, it is going to be +EV in a slow one as well, and that is where I disagree with Snyder. In fact, PF aggression in tournaments is good no matter what the structure is, and I think Snyder's advice happens to be right more often than not, but not because of the structure but because of the hightened value in PF aggression in tournament poker.

In fact, this notion goes right back to what Sklansky wrote about in his tournament book that predates even Harrington: you should be more apt to play more aggressively in tournaments, even with weaker hands than you might normally play. This is due to the nature of being able to put your opponents for their "tournament life".

And this is why I think Harrington gets it right. He tells us to play good poker and make +EV decisions. He tells us to use "M" to help make these decisions easier, but it still comes down to expected value. He does not differentiate between structures because he does not need to. Once again I iterate that he used plenty of examples from online tournaments with (presumably) fast structures, but his considerations were position, player tendencies, cards, stack sizes, etc., not the speed of the tournament.

So yeah, raise it up from the button and grab those chips. Make super aggressive plays and put your opponents to the test for their tournament life. But do it because this is +EV, not because you think the structure demands it.