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

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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.

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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.

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It's here.

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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.

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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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could just be a hot card streak, but i've actually had pretty good success recently in all kinds of tourneys (turbo SNG's thru MTT's) just waiting on good cards (top 10%-15%). even in the turbo's, which really surprised me.

i get the sense that you don't have enough fold equity for these stack=5-7BB arnold/danH all-in pushes. of course, maybe i've misrepresented their advice, although they both love the first-in vig .....

i have to agree with phil gordon. be very careful of A-weak trying to get 3 opponents to fold pre-flop (or is that obvious)