Snyder's Misconception about Sklansky's Add-on Advice

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

Arnold Snyder has been criticizing David Sklansky for the following quote in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players:

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I think a decent rule of thumb would be to add-on if you have less than the average number of chips at that point, and not otherwise.

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Most recently, he states in an article on his website:

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In effect, Sklansky is saying it’s fine for a skilled player to pay $30,000 for $10,000 in chips, but not to pay $20,000 for $20,000 in chips (in a $10,000 rebuy event). Sklansky has failed to realize that extra chips add to the amount of skill a player can use, and the amount of action he can generate with an edge.

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David refuses to get into these debates because they are so ridiculous as we'll show shortly, and he thinks it's beneath him. However, I think that this one is important enough that I'll address it.

To show that Snyder's last quoted comment is flat out wrong, all that is necessary is to quote from pages 44 and 45 of David's book:

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There is another point. The above example assumes that you are a typical player. Suppose that you are one of the best players in the tournament. Or alternatively, suppose the bystander is. It might be worth it for him to buy your original $10,000 in chips for $30,000 because of his great skill. And if you increased your $10,000 to $21,000, it might be worth it for him to pay $50,000 for that larger stack.

In other words, the extra $11,000 you won, would allow you to charge him $20,000 more. On the other hand, in this second example, even though your $11,000 win made you $20,000, it did not violate the principle that extra chips won had less value, because your first $10,000 was worth $30,000 (to the bystander anyway), while the second $11,000 was worth less than that.

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So you see that in this case even though extra chips are worth less to a skilled player than the initial chips, David would still strongly advocate an add-on.

Even Snyder would probably admit that the more chips you have the less advantageous an add-on is, and David agrees with Arnold that the more skilled you are in comparison to the other players the greater your stack would have to be before an add-on is negative EV. David's Rule of Thumb however, was not specifically directed towards players who have giant edges, (and if we're not talking about no limit [remember David's book was written about all types of tournaments before no limit tournaments became the event] that usually applies to even the best players once the antes get high) and also was made with the realization that gambler's ruin criterion will often point someone away from an add-on that gives you an edge far less than your original buy-in. Keep in mind that he does advocate an add-on even when you have increased your chips significantly since he uses the cut-off figure of the average number of chips of the remaining players. In those tournaments where where very few have yet to be eliminated at the point of the add-on, we do agree good players should certainly add-on even if they have somewhat more than the average number.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Cactus Jack]

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David refuses to get into these debates because they are so ridiculous as we'll show shortly, and he thinks it's beneath him.

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It's a very high horse. Almost Olympian.

[Arnold_Snyder]

The article criticizes Malmuth's and Sklansky's rebuy and add-on advice as mistaken and very costly to skilled players.

It also criticizes Malmuth's overall tournament strategy, which is based on the same fundamental theoretical errors as his rebuy advice. Here is a link to the article:

The Implied Discount

[David Sklansky]

"It also criticizes Malmuth's overall tournament strategy, which is based on the same fundamental theoretical errors as his rebuy advice."

I would assume everyone on this forum is smart enough to realize that there is a big difference for a good player between rebuying a hundred dollars worth of chips (assuming chips are face value) and risking a lot of your own chips to get that hundred. Except for the case where you are so low that you often won't get to play your free hands, your chips are worth more than your cash.

[Mason Malmuth]

Arnold:

David and I want to know why you wrote an article where you claim that we say a bunch of things where in many cases we state the opposite in our books, and we also want to know why you say we advocate a certain strategy for poker tournaments where we usually advocate something quite different.

The only two answers we can see is that you skimmed a few quotes without reading our entire strtegy or that you purposely picked out quotes you knew would not give a clear picture of what we advocate.

Also, you don't mention that our books are targeted for all tournaments, not just no limit tournaments, and for all players, not just those that have very large edges.

MM

[fyodor]

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If a chip is a bullet, and I have 500 bullets, and you have 4500 bullets, you can utilize your ammo in many ways that I cannot. You can fire test shots to see if you can pick up a small pile of ammo that none of your enemies are all that interested in defending. You can engage in small speculative battles to try and pick up more ammo, and you can back out of these little skirmishes if necessary without much damage to your stockpile. Most importantly, because all of your enemies can see your huge stockpile, you can get them to surrender ammo to you without fighting, even in battles they would have won, were it not for their fear of losing everything.

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This is correct.

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So, intrinsically, each of your bullets has a greater value than each of mine purely as a function of its greater utility. This is due directly to the fact that you have so much more ammo than me.

The more chips you have, the more each chip is worth.

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But this is an incorrect conclusion.

Yes a bigger stack is worth more than a smaller stack, but that doesn't mean each chip in the bigger stack is worth more. It just means that whatever the total worth of the smaller stack, the total worth of the bigger stack is still larger.

If I have 100 chips worth $1 a piece and you have 1000 chips, your chips are worth more than 10c each. That is the only conclusion you can safely draw.

[betgo]

First of all, I assume Sklansky's theory assumes the addon is the same number of chips as the buyin/rebuy, as is true at the WSOP. In smaller live tournaments, the addon is often twice the buyin for the same price. Some online sites give 1.33 or 1.67 x the buyin rebuy for the same price. Then it is very questionable not to take the addon.

Also, you have to consider the value of the players time, so it may be worthwhile to maximize chances of a good cash. As mentioned, if the player is better than the rest of the field, the chips may be more valuable.

Also, the big stack is an advantage, due to players fear of playing aginst a big stack. Some players can exploit a big stack paricularly well. Gigabet made a well known post in the MTT forum about the desirability of gambling to double up, even if the gamble is slightly cEV-.

Some players use maniac strategies to build big stacks expensively during the rebuy period. The fact that many players consider those strategies reasonable implies that it is unlikely not taking the addon can be good.

I am sure Sklanky's advice is based on some reasonable mathematical theory, but I am not clear how applicable it is in practice.

[David Sklansky]

"Gigabet made a well known post in the MTT forum about the desirability of gambling to double up, even if the gamble is slightly cEV-."

Where please?

[betgo]

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"Gigabet made a well known post in the MTT forum about the desirability of gambling to double up, even if the gamble is slightly cEV-."

Where please?

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Gigabet Dilemma post

[Sh@i'tan]

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"Gigabet made a well known post in the MTT forum about the desirability of gambling to double up, even if the gamble is slightly cEV-."

Where please?

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Gigabet Dilemma post

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You misquoted him. Its not making a -cEV play for all his chips, but rather making a -cEV play with "meaningless chips."

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how do you recognize when you can get on the negative side of the situation and know that if you lose that individual hand, your stack will still be able to contend with the fields?

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