Another recent essay of mine, there was some decent discussion on this before, but I would like to hear fresh comments on this.



Sklansky (I believe it was Sklansky) said something like "In order to succeed and survive in tournaments, You need to give up small EV edges early in order to gain Bigger EV edges later". What he meant by this is you need pass on marginally profitable situations early in a tournament to gain a bigger edge in situations later in the event. This has been called the 'survival strategy' method of MTT play. Basically he was saying preservation of your stack is more important than pushing a small edge in order to gain a bigger stack. This has since been shown to be a marginally profitable style of play. It turns out that giving up on these small edges early, while increasing your chances of making into deeper into the field, reduces your chances of winning a large payout. This realization has lead to the formation of loose and/or ultra-aggressive styles of play for MTT's, like the style that Gus Hanson and other recently famous players have employed, and to a style I describe here [Limp-and-Go], which is a looser strategy used for large M's early.

These strategies are excellent for use in MTT's that have a structure suitable to playing a lot of hands. The structures found in large buy-in events have deep stacks with slow blinds. These huge M's combined with seeing many hands each level allows for a lot of poker to be played. Most Online tournaments are barely within this bubble. They usually have short levels, and while you start with a large M, the rapid escalation of the blinds quickly erodes that M. But these 'regular' events still allow for some strategic and tactical poker to be played. You can still make short term -EV plays to gain a bigger EV edge later (i.e., making an obviously bad call on the river for cheap just to see what the other player has, for information to be used against him later).



But some online events, and a lot of amateur live 'charity' tournaments, have ultra-fast structures relative to amount of hands played per level and sometimes (especially live) very small M's to start. These events require another approach different from those mentioned above. But here we can go back to what Sklansky said above, albeit a perversion of it. Sklansky was advocating avoiding situations where our EV was minimally positive in order to preserve your stack for later use. In turbo events, I believe you should give up some EV, meaning knowingly take a slightly –EV stance, in some situations in order to build your stack quickly. Turbo events move so fast that you don’t have time to wait for a good hand. If you wait for a premium hand, they soon become anything with paint on it. This is basically an extension of the Limp and Go style, where you try to see a lot of cheap flops with marginal hands early when you have a large M, but here you need to be taking risks to build a stack quickly. This means drawing to hands when you aren’t getting the correct odds, explicit or implied, when if you hit, there is a good chance you will greatly increase your stack. I am not advocating chasing down long shots, just marginally -EV plays.



The whole goal of this is to have a high placing finish. These events are so volatile that just making it ITM on occasion will not turn a regular profit, to really make a profit from these events you need to have a few final tables. To do this, you need to make a big score a couple of times, and to make big scores, you need to accumulate a big stack early. You cannot commit a decent portion of your stack on one hand, and then hope to win back those chips at a later time. The speed of the blinds will make any equal TC gain later a much smaller increase in M proportionally smaller. Given a normal distribution of hands, you will not get a second chance to earn chips with a similarly sized M. This means you should never have a “great laydown” in a turbo event. Unless you know a particular player cold, there is no reason to ever lay down a hand when you think you are marginally –EV. The affect those chips will have on your stack is greater than preserving it will. Basically, the cost in real money is greater by folding situations like this than the slightly negative TC EV you are taking.

This may seem like I’m advocating bad play, and in a way I sort of am. But you need to look at the math of the resulting situations. The cost, in terms of real money EV, is greater by folding marginally –EV hands, and therefore crippling your stack, than playing that hand. Survival is not a method that will earn any long-term profits in fast paced MTT’s. You need to build a stack quickly. This method will increase your variance some, and will require a slightly bigger bankroll to successfully play these.

Now this is just a new theory of mine, and needs revision and discussion. Results in play have leaned towards this being a good idea, but I have no data towards a conclusive result at all. Please feel free to discuss.

To say that tourny speed doesn't exist, or doesn't have an affect on the game, is ludicrous.

But yeah, the notion that there is a way to beat a single MTT is pretty dumb, There aren't enough hands for the long run to surface. It's the ability to apply a winning strategy over many events that wins the money.

Sorry, snowman, but I have to completely and totally disagree with you about the books being worthless. Anyone who is playing MTTs regularly who isn't working at their game is going to inevitably be a long-term loser. Yes, they are pretty much "a lottery with better odds and a little skill," as Barry Greenstein says, but the skill IS attainable.

HoH 1-3 and the new book I'm reading, The Poker Tournament Formula, combined, are probably all anyone needs to raise their equity as much as they can through read/study. The rest is putting it into action by playing them. Lots of them.

Getting in there with the worst of it pretty much guarantees you'll get the worst of it. I will give you a guaranteed guarantee. If the only time you're in an all-in situation is the last hand, you're doing well.

Possible? Yes. Probable? No. Unlikely, yes. But the general idea is a good one.

What is Hachem's strategy exactly? I've heard him say he plays very tight early, but that's about it.

In a nutshell I've heard him say (maybe on ESPN as well as some magazine?) that he plays very tight in the late stages to try to make it to the final 3 and then opens up. I'd like to learn more about the way he plays as well because he has had some success beyond last year's championship. I believe he may have cashed in the ME again this year. I know he final tabled the LV Circuit Event and took a bad beat which aired on ESPN last week. Which differs from someone like Harrington who almost always seems to rely on pot odds although he does have a nice little chapter in HOH2 where he characterizes the type of people you may find at a final table and how to play against each type depending on how much the money probably means to them.