After Harrington

[Mason Malmuth]

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In fact the PTF was written specifically to exploit mechanical Harrington style players in tournaments with fast blind structures.

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This is shameful and you know it. I have previously posted email from Snyder where he claims that the advice in his book and Harrington II are very similar, and you have read this.

Snyder only began attacking Harrington when we pointed out some flaws in his book. Now he's claiming, and you mimic it, that his book was written to expose the flaws in Harrington. Shame on you. If you remember my email from Snyder, he claimed that his book was actually written well before Harrington was published and that his publisher took a very long time to get his book to press. So how can you write a book to exploit a style in another book when you do the writing well before you have even seen the other book?

Also, as for Snyder not being a very good poker player, that's exactly what he and his wife told me and a friend of mine a couple of years back. He explained that he did have experience with casino tournaments where you moved your chips in a lot and that the small poker tournaments were somewhat similar to these and that he was doing better there.

Again, just so there is no mistake on this, I do recommend Snyder's book, but it does have some flaws. Namely he doesn't realize that tournaments are actually percentage payback as opposed to winner take all (which causes some incorrect conclusions in his book dealing with strategy late in the tournament) and that he fails to realize some of his plays only work against very weak playing opponents who just happen to be populate to a large degree many of these small buy-in tournaments.

MM

[BigAlK]

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In fact the PTF was written specifically to exploit mechanical Harrington style players in tournaments with fast blind structures.

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This is shameful and you know it. I have previously posted email from Snyder where he claims that the advice in his book and Harrington II are very similar, and you have read this.

Snyder only began attacking Harrington when we pointed out some flaws in his book. Now he's claiming, and you mimic it, that his book was written to expose the flaws in Harrington. Shame on you. If you remember my email from Snyder, he claimed that his book was actually written well before Harrington was published and that his publisher took a very long time to get his book to press. So how can you write a book to exploit a style in another book when you do the writing well before you have even seen the other book?

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Mason,

I agree that the short stack strategies in HoHII and the PTF are similar. However the recommendations for earlier in a tournament (the area generally covered in HoHI) are not. However you are right in regard to my falling into the revisionist history trap regarding Harrington vs Snyder and I apologize for that. Although Harrington is mentioned in the bibliography and the introduction of the PTF (I'm not sure about elsewhere) I believe you are probably right that Snyder's manuscript was essentially complete prior to publication of Harrington. (To be clear, I assume that the mentions of Harrington were added as a part of minor revisions just prior to publication). Let me attempt to restate the part you quoted above with this revisionist bias removed. This is based on my interpretation after a re-reading of the introduction chapter of the PTF.

Snyder wrote the PTF because he believed the strategy recommended in the books on tournament play published prior to him writing the manuscript for the PTF, while probably appropriate for slower structure tournaments (he even recommends several authors including Harrington and Sklansky at that point) did not work well for small buy-in, fast structured tournaments. His explanation of the reasons include faster structure (less time to get chips by waiting for cards considered playable by conventional wisdom) and a different mix of opponents. He explains that he met several players who were obviously highly skilled (in the sense of poker skills and the ability to do well in tournaments with slower structures) who did poorly in these small buy-in, fast structure tournaments. The style described in the PTF was devised through observation of those who were successful in these and trying things out himself.

The PTF as written describes a style that is a plausible counter attack to a tighter playing style (at least in a fast structured tournament since in a slow structured tournament they'll eventually figure you out). I used Harrington as a proxy to describe that tighter, "traditional" style. (Yes, I know HoH doesn't advocate always playing tight - I'm talking about his default style when reasonably deep stacked. Replace with whatever author proceeded Harrington and advocated a conservative style if you wish.)

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Also, as for Snyder not being a very good poker player, that's exactly what he and his wife told me and a friend of mine a couple of years back. He explained that he did have experience with casino tournaments where you moved your chips in a lot and that the small poker tournaments were somewhat similar to these and that he was doing better there.

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My objection was not to whether or not this statement was true. My objection was that I doubted the poster who said it had anything to base the statement on. In your case people can decide for themself what Snyder meant when he said this to you. I'd tell you the same thing (because I'm not a very good player relative to your experience and overall poker skills). I'd say something entirely different to any member of my bar league because with few exceptions none of them are close to as good as I am. It's all relative.

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Again, just so there is no mistake on this, I do recommend Snyder's book, but it does have some flaws.

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Thanks for reiterating this. In the contentiousness that so often creeps in to discussion of this book and, to a greater extent, discussion around what has been said since it's easy to lose sight of this fact.

[Mason Malmuth]

Just so there is no misunderstanding here's what Snyder wrote to me in email dated July 5, 2006. And for everyone else this has been posted before and you read it.

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Actually, when I read Harrington II, I was amazed at how similar my chip strategy chapter was to much of his advice. My entire book was actually written by the end of 2004, but Cardoza was so late on getting two other manuscripts I'd sent him to press, that I never sent him the poker manuscript. I updated some of the material by adding in data from the 2005 WSOP, none of which was in the original manuscript. By that point, I had almost quit playing tournaments. Karen and I were doing so well online, that the money from these small buy-in tournaments seemed negligible. The comments I make on Harrington II in my book were really pasted in long after I had developed the strategy I was using. I really did devise the whole thing starting from Sklansky's "System."

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First off, Harrington I was published in December, 2004, and Harrington II was published in June, 2005. So again there's no way he wrote his book as a response to any Harrington book.

You wrote:

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Snyder wrote the PTF because he believed the strategy recommended in the books on tournament play published prior to him writing the manuscript for the PTF, while probably appropriate for slower structure tournaments (he even recommends several authors including Harrington and Sklansky at that point) did not work well for small buy-in, fast structured tournaments.

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Come on. In the posts on this forum by him and his wife it was clear that Snyder had no knowledge what was written on poker tournaments in virtually any book. It was only after he was stung by criticism here that he began to claim what was written by us was completely different than what we wrote. And you know this. Again, shame on you.

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The style described in the PTF was devised through observation of those who were successful in these and trying things out himself.

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Well Snyder clearly wasn't one of these successful players. Just read my quote from him.

You wrote:

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The PTF as written describes a style that is a plausible counter attack to a tighter playing style (at least in a fast structured tournament since in a slow structured tournament they'll eventually figure you out).

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No it's not. It's a style that works against terrible players who tend to play too weak-tight in tournaments and are afraid of losing all their chips. (Again, the small buy-in tournaments have lots of this type.) Skilled players like a Dan Harrington, while they may have a tigher style than some of the other better known tournament players, are certainly not afraid to lose their chips. That's a big difference.

Bu the way, I'm the first one to write about taking advantage of tight play. It appears in the tournament section of my my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics and I wrote this many years ago. David also writes about it in his book Tournament Poker for Advanced Players -- read about the Gap Concept and how the gap tends to expand in tournaments. Again, shame on you.

MM

[BigAlK]

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First off, Harrington I was published in December, 2004, and Harrington II was published in June, 2005. So again there's no way he wrote his book as a response to any Harrington book.

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I thought my response was extremely clear that you are right and I am wrong on this issue. Hence my apology for falling into the revisionist history trap.

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Come on. In the posts on this forum by him and his wife it was clear that Snyder had no knowledge what was written on poker tournaments in virtually any book. It was only after he was stung by criticism here that he began to claim what was written by us was completely different than what we wrote. And you know this. Again, shame on you.

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Come on Mason. What I quoted above is paraphrasing what Snyder said in the book (last paragraph of page 16 and first graph on page 17). First you rightfully call me out for quoting the revisionism in those posts, then you engage in it yourself.

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No it's not. It's a style that works against terrible players who tend to play too weak-tight in tournaments and are afraid of losing all their chips. (Again, the small buy-in tournaments have lots of this type.) Skilled players like a Dan Harrington, while they may have a tigher style than some of the other better known tournament players, are certainly not afraid to lose their chips. That's a big difference.

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You're right, it works best against this type of player and as you state the tournaments the book addressed are full of these types of players. My point is that the techniques can work against any style player. However in a slower structure or against what you perceive as a solid, thinking player you need to pick your spots or they'll figure out what you're up to.

Initially you quoted a single sentence of my post which you felt was out of line. I've apologized twice, and admitted it was incorrect because I incorrectly singled out Harrington as an example when that was a chronological impossibility. Now you're dragging out old battles about which I don't believe we have any substantial disagreement. If anyone wonders about any of the other issues you've raised here they can see the original battle in all their original splendor by exercising the search function.

I have no desire to get in a pissing match with you either here, on your home turf, or anywhere else. I'm not Snyder's spokesman anymore than I'm 2+2's spokesman when I post on Snyder's forum in defense of 2+2 books or authors. I'm going to let this go now. If you want to get in the last word on any of this have at it. I'm going to let it go now.

[SuperUberBob]

The Full Tilt book is quite impressive. The section on postflop play and the concept of leverage were the most interesting parts to me.

I still haven't read the entire book (haven't hit the Stud or Omaha sections yet), but it looks promising.

[levAA]

As my previous post has generated some discussion here i would like to make a short comment about it:

As I live in Austria/Europe I have not met Arnold Snyder personally nor played ever poker with him. Saying "he is not a good poker player" is an opinion i formed reading about him here or on other forums in the net. This was not intended to be an offense against him personally. I also haven't talked to many politicians or sportmen here, but still have an opinion on them - they are good, bad, best in the whole world...

I have studied Snyder's blackjack books and liked them a lot. He has done a very good job here, and i believe he is a very good blackjack player (though i have never played with him).

My post shouldn't intend to warm up any kind of war, it was just my opinion about this book - and i still think that his approach to position play is too mechanic compared to other authors.

lev