The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[jackaaron]

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Lets say that proper play as a fully functional player in the green zone as outlined by Harrington is considered the correct way to play. Add to that, the blinds are going to increase rapidly and take us out of the green zone soon, why would we play incorrectly in order to avoid this?

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Read what Harrington wrote. It's important enough to stay in the Green Zone that it's worth taking some risk to stay there. What exactly did you think he meant when he said "taking some risk"?

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Your "answer" seems almost to another question.

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You would play "incorrectly", i.e. you would "take some risk", because you can only make "proper plays" if you're in the green zone. In other words, Harrington did not fully flesh out his "M strategy". Comments such as "take some risk to remain there" show that he's aware of "impending doom". In other words, having an M of 20 is not the same thing as having an M of 40 (with regard to your strategy), even though they are both in the "Green Zone", especially if the blinds are coming up quickly or there are large antes.

His strategy is incomplete.

So again I ask you - what do you think "taking some risk" means in context? Does it actually mean "playing incorrectly", or does it mean something else? Does it mean that what is actually "playing correctly" not really what you think it means when your M is, say, exactly 20? Obviously you should always "play correctly". It should be obvious by now that "playing correctly" results in different decisions when your M is 20 and when your M is 50.

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Okay, I see what you mean! Thanks for your clarification first of all.

I like your point...maybe you're not actually playing incorrectly. At least, "incorrectly" would be a poor choice of words.

[adios]

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Your M is calculated from the blinds you will likely be paying not what other players are paying no??? In the example you give, when it's my turn to post a big blind if I know I will have an M of 2 then the fact that someone else has an M of 13 when they post blinds is basically irrelevent.

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First it's not irrelevant because your stack size compared to your opponents' stack size is always relevant. Second, the point is how many hands you get to see before your M value drops. The faster M goes down, the less you can wait for good hands.

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First of all nobody is stating that your stack size compared to your opponent's isn't relevent. The relevency pertains to someone else's M and how it affects your strategy when you have a completely different M. In your example that you claim illustrates your point your M is virtually never 13 but virtually always much lower. Your M is not decreasing at the rate per hand as you imply. Based on what you reasonably expect to pay in the blinds when you have to post them per your example, your M actually stays pretty much in the range that dictates a strategy that does not change from hand to hand if we use Harrington's recommendations as a guide. Your M is based on what you expect to pay in the blinds and of course your stack size. Not on what someone else has to pay. Your example basically doesn't refute Mason's point in the least.

[WRX]

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IMHO, what Snyder adds to "M" is the concept of "M-decay". It's sort of like radioactive half-life. Since doing nothing in a fast tournament will result in your M dropping faster than in a slow tournament, you have to make an adjustment for this. If you have an M of 10 in a slow tournament, your "decayed" M value might be 9.5 -- but in a super-fast tournament, it might be 3!


Snyder's point about taking some risks to stay in the green is also well taken. If you are a better than average player, it's worth taking risks to preserve your ability to deploy your full toolbox, and the faster the tournament, the more risk you should be willing to take. If your M is 30 and the rest of the table is around 10 (and diving fast), you've got a huge edge.

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Well put.

Much of Arnold's critique of the theory that a player in the early stages of a tournament is better off not pursuing small advantages comes down to the point that in a fast tournament, rising blinds will put so much pressure on you that those small advantages are the best opportunities you're ever likely to get. Mason rejected this argument, and held to the position that tournament speed should not affect one's tournament strategy--that strategy should be dictated by current M, not by what M would become within a relatively short time.

Now, one should be careful to make the distinction that not all decisions are affected by tournament speed. There are decisions that even in a fast tournament, remain dictated mostly by current M. The value of coming into a pot with a drawing-type hand like the suited connectors is most greatly influenced by the implied odds if you hit a big flop--which is a function of the ratio between what it costs you to call the blinds or a small raise, and the amount you'll be able to bet after the flop and have called by another player. What M will be a few hands from now makes no difference to your implied odds for the current hand.

What's sad is that the debate became so venomous that it was impossible to have a courteous discourse, and until the past few days, there were hardly any intelligent comments to be found in these forums on the subject for several weeks. It's plain to me that Mason should have simply acknowledged that he made a mistake on this one point, and that Arnold should have likewise conceded error on one or two points, but neither would leave his ego out of it. It may be quite telling that for the last couple of months, they've both backed off from pontificating on the subject of fast tournament strategy.

[Mason Malmuth]

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What's sad is that the debate became so venomous that it was impossible to have a courteous discourse, and until the past few days, there were hardly any intelligent comments to be found in these forums on the subject for several weeks. It's plain to me that Mason should have simply acknowledged that he made a mistake on this one point, and that Arnold should have likewise conceded error on one or two points

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So it's okay for Snyder to write articles where he claims that I said things which I never said, and that I gave specific advice that I never did, and quote some of my work totally out of context to prove his points. You need to answer that question before you come on here and make this sort of statement.

As for your other point:

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Mason rejected this argument, and held to the position that tournament speed should not affect one's tournament strategy--that strategy should be dictated by current M, not by what M would become within a relatively short time.

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You're misrepresenting what I said here as well. I do agree that if your M will change within a few hands it can and should affect your strategy. (This is in Harrington II which I am the publisher.) This was stated many times. But I don't agree that if you have a starting M of say 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every 15 minutes you should be playing your hands differently from if you had a starting M of 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every hour.

Also, something that both you and Snyder refused to address is the fact that his book (and thus Snyder himself) never realized that the tournaments he addressed are percentage payback instead of winner take all. This affects your strategy.

As pointed out in my Gambling Theory book the affect is small early in a tournament but can become significant very late in a tournament. This is something that Snyder deliberately misquoted from me and that you have refused to recognize in your posts.

Shame on you.

MM

[WRX]

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You're misrepresenting what I said here as well. I do agree that if your M will change within a few hands it can and should affect your strategy. (This is in Harrington II which I am the publisher.) This was stated many times. But I don't agree that if you have a starting M of say 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every 15 minutes you should be playing your hands differently from if you had a starting M of 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every hour.

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I accept your correction, and thank you for setting forth your views in greater detail. This is fully consistent with what you were writing in these forums late last year. What I was trying to do was to summarize your views in a few lines. I have to say that for purposes of the point being debated, I don't think that any difference or inaccuracy in how I stated them was significant. As you say again today, "I don't agree that if you have a starting M of say 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every 15 minutes you should be playing your hands differently from if you had a starting M of 50 and the stakes are going to be raised every hour." I think that this is wrong for reasons that a number of people have ably discussed in this and related threads, and that Arnold discussed in his book and in further writings.

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So it's okay for Snyder to write articles where he claims that I said things which I never said, and that I gave specific advice that I never did, and quote some of my work totally out of context to prove his points. You need to answer that question before you come on here and make this sort of statement.

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No, I don't think that that sort of thing is okay. It's true that Arnold did some of that, although I'm not prepared to conclude that it was deliberate. I see no reason that I should be obligated to publicly castigate Arnold before suggesting that you are in error, on a point of theory, and that you are letting pride get in the way of reexamining your position. Please note that whatever mild criticism I've levied has been evenhanded, directed equally to you both. In the post to which you have just responded, I noted that I thought Arnold, too, was failing to admit error on one or two points. I went into a whole lot more detail about this in various messages last year, and it would serve no good purpose to repeat it all now.

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Also, something that both you and Snyder refused to address is the fact that his book (and thus Snyder himself) never realized that the tournaments he addressed are percentage payback instead of winner take all. This affects your strategy.

As pointed out in my Gambling Theory book the affect is small early in a tournament but can become significant very late in a tournament. This is something that Snyder deliberately misquoted from me and that you have refused to recognize in your posts.

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I do acknowledge the effects you mention here. These points came up prominently in some of the posts from last year that I just mentioned.

The thing is, whatever you may think, I'm not some Snyder clone, and I'm really not interested in taking sides in an argument as to which of you has the most winning personality, or is the better dancer. I was responding to an insightful comment by another contributor, noting how there had been such a lack of constructive exchange on this subject for so long, and pointing out what I thought was needed to move things forward.

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Shame on you.

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I reject that.

[DrakeDerek]

I'm a low stakes player and I have used this forum for working on my online poker skills. I recently bought Mr. Snyder's book and it has helped me very much with what I consider "turbo" tournaments. I used to despise turbos because I never felt like I was able to apply what I've learned from my collection of books. (probably 50 or so). Thanks to Mr. Snyder, I finally understand just how powerful position can be. The position section of the book paid for itself when I played in a $1 turbo just to try out his method. I only played the position recommendations meaning I even folded KK from up front. (yes it hurt, but this was an experiment and by that point it was working great.) I became an overwhelming chipleader which almost never happens for me, and I went on to win the whole thing, never playing my cards.

If I had to say which 3 books I like best: HoH vol II is my favorite for obvious reasons. The Poker Tournament Formula comes in second for the position drills and the formulas used to calculate final tables for BM games. My third choice is Read Em and Reap by Joe Navarro because of the amazing insights that he provides into body language.

Mason and Arnold, thank you both for contributing greatly to my poker success. Without HoH vII I don't think I ever would have freerolled into last year's Aruba Classic. Arnold, I wish you would have written your book earlier, and I might have had a better chance. (I placed 110 out of about 500 players there.)

Thanks again guys and thank you to all the players who contribute to the many interesting posts I've read over the years,

Derek Bell

[WRX]

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I do acknowledge the effects you mention here. These points came up prominently in some of the posts from last year that I just mentioned.

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This thread, for example.

[smbruin22]

is anyone interested in discussing the actual advice in this book? i.e. do you think he recommends playing a little too fast?

[WRX]

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is anyone interested in discussing the actual advice in this book? i.e. do you think he recommends playing a little too fast?

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Well, sure, that would be a good discussion.

If the question is one of the advice maybe being a "little" too fast (and not a "lot" too fast), wouldn't that depend largely on the opposition you were facing? That is, don't you need to adjust your strategy based on how the other players at your table play? Unless you have made the decision to determine and stick to a game theory "optimal" strategy, ala Mathematics of Poker.

My experience with PTF has been that it jarred me into the realization that an awful lot of tournament players have a pretty wimpy style, and that you can take advantage of this by being very aggressive and stealing a lot of pots. Position, and the broader concept of the overall hand situation, really can matter more than cards.

But what do you think?

[smbruin22]

WRX, thanks for the response!!

i do think that most players in those 6 hour $100 B&M MTT's play really scared and you can just "take" pots (even big ones) from them when everyone has deeper stacks. but then when it gets a little shorter i think you really want to pick your spots..... and then that gets down to how arnold describes spots. i think his style is a little impatient, but i think dan harrington's books are a little too slow (probably because arnold assumes 10 minute levels and dan assumes 40-60 minute levels)

i do think you have to be willing to die and i think arnold is willing to do that in an MTT..... in internet MTT's i think many people are, but B&M tourneys have much, much more of a survival bias to them (you've driven to tourney and waited around beforehand, and you're usually playing for much higher stakes than you do in one internet MTT)