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jeffnc
Mason's Favorite
Joined: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 7222
Location: NC, USA
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 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:26 am Post subject: Snyder and Harrington agree? |
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Arnold,
I was an active participant in the debates on 2+2 about Harrington on Holdem vs. Poker Tournament Formula. You credit (and recommend) HoH in PTF. Yet on your web site you seem to say that some of it is significantly wrong. I'm wondering if this was "pushing back" to make your point, or if you felt this way all along.
The reason I ask is that I think Harrington's theory about M is incomplete because it doesn't take rate of change into account. But I get the impression that Harrington himself is vaguely aware of this, because he has a couple hand examples in the book where he makes a point of the fact that the next blind increase is coming up very soon, as if this were an important piece of information for making decisions. Despite Malmuth's insistence to the contrary, it seems that Harrington would actually agree with you that rate of change of M is important.
What do you think of that? |
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Arnold_Snyder
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Las Vegas
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: Re: Snyder and Harrington agree? |
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| jeffnc wrote: | Arnold,
I was an active participant in the debates on 2+2 about Harrington on Holdem vs. Poker Tournament Formula. You credit (and recommend) HoH in PTF. Yet on your web site you seem to say that some of it is significantly wrong. I'm wondering if this was "pushing back" to make your point, or if you felt this way all along.
The reason I ask is that I think Harrington's theory about M is incomplete because it doesn't take rate of change into account. But I get the impression that Harrington himself is vaguely aware of this, because he has a couple hand examples in the book where he makes a point of the fact that the next blind increase is coming up very soon, as if this were an important piece of information for making decisions. Despite Malmuth's insistence to the contrary, it seems that Harrington would actually agree with you that rate of change of M is important.
What do you think of that? |
Until Mason insisted that Harrington's M strategies were meant to cover all tournament structures and to be used throughout tournaments, I felt that Harrington in HOHII was primarily addressing final table play in major deep stack events. These are about the only type of events that Harrington actually plays, and for the most part these events have 90 or 120 minute blind levels. I'll also note that Harrington introduced M in HOHII that is titled "Endplay."
M is much more usable (and accurate) when the blind levels are long and especially as the table gets more short-handed. In fast tournament structures, it just doesn't work. My suspicion is that Harrington added the online tournament examples because his publisher wanted his series to be more universal in appeal--but, again, I really doubt Harrington has done much online play with the typical fast blind structures that are common online.
I still recommend Harrington's books, but I think players who try to play by any book formula are going to be doomed to fail. I doubt Harrington plays according to his books. Poker--and especially NLH-- tournaments are much more psychological and much less card-based than HOH would have you believe. I also think the current tournament environment has become much more loose and aggressive than it was in the past, and I just don't think conservative strategies are going to work as well as they used to. The playing fields are getting tougher and smarter all the time. |
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mchilger
ITH Founder and Poker Author
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 5808
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I also think the current tournament environment has become much more loose and aggressive than it was in the past, and I just don't think conservative strategies are going to work as well as they used to. The playing fields are getting tougher and smarter all the time. |
This is true and I think it has a lot to do with the Harrington books themselves. Players have started pushing a lot more loosely than was the case a few years, likely from Harrington's M discussion. Once that started happening, players started calling a lot looser. The end result is that now the M recommendations in Harrington are somewhat out of date. Specifically, I think you can play more conservative now and wait a tad longer for a better hand that what Harrington's ranges suggest, since you are more likely to be in a dominating position over a calling hand (since players call looser nowadays).
But as always, decisions like this are opponent dependant. I will call all-in raises much looser against good players than I would against "amatuers" as amatuers are less likely to push with junk.
Matthew |
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jeffnc
Mason's Favorite
Joined: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 7222
Location: NC, USA
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| If you're more or less in agreement with Arnold in general strategy-wise, then are you saying mix it up more and take more risks while you can "play poker" with a medium or bigger stack, but when you get to low M values, be a little more conservative about when you push all-in (as opposed to playing poker)? |
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mchilger
ITH Founder and Poker Author
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 5808
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:49 am Post subject: |
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I haven't read Snyder's book yet as I am way behind on my reading. I'll probably wait until his new one in any case. So I don't know the specifics of Snyder's strategy.
I'll try to explain a little better my prior post. When Harrington wrote his books, the majority of players would need very strong hands to call all-in pushes. Given this, the correct strategy was to frequently push with small stacks given the high probability of stealing the blinds.
After Harrington, many, many players adopted his push all-in strategy. The better players have adapted and now have started calling much weaker than pre-Harrington. Therefore, weak pushes are not as profitable as before since the steal rate has declined. However, the profitability of pushing with real hands has increased since you get called so much weaker than pre-Harrington.
I'm not as aggressive pushing with the medium low M's like Harrington suggests. I'm willing to take my chances a little longer hoping to get a real hand since there is a decent chance a weak hand might call. So I actually think Harrington is a little outdated, not because his advice was poor, but because players have adjusted so much that a "new" default strategy is needed.
By the way, Rizen wrote a great article about this over at www.pocketfives.com called Beyond Harrington.
Matthew |
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jeffnc
Mason's Favorite
Joined: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 7222
Location: NC, USA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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Speaking in terms of 'M', you would say that Poker Tournament Formula says that Harrington assumes long blind levels, and slow changes in M. PTF says that M isn't enough because many tournaments have differing blind levels, long, very short, and everywhere in between. So you can't formulate a complete strategy based on M - you have to account for how fast M changes as well, which Harrington doesn't do (he hints at it, I argue.)
As an example, how would you play differently if the blinds increased every 3 minutes?
Since PTF is geared toward shorter tournaments, it's more aggressive than Harrington, and is less card-based. |
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Taardvark
1K Club
Joined: 14 Feb 2007
Posts: 1085
Location: Fremont, CA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| jeffnc wrote: | Speaking in terms of 'M', you would say that Poker Tournament Formula says that Harrington assumes long blind levels, and slow changes in M. PTF says that M isn't enough because many tournaments have differing blind levels, long, very short, and everywhere in between. So you can't formulate a complete strategy based on M - you have to account for how fast M changes as well, which Harrington doesn't do (he hints at it, I argue.)
As an example, how would you play differently if the blinds increased every 3 minutes?
Since PTF is geared toward shorter tournaments, it's more aggressive than Harrington, and is less card-based. |
One thing that I've personally picked up the past couple of years since I tend to play in tournaments that are faster rather than slower is what position I look to be in when the blinds increase on the next level. For instance, if the blinds are going up in a minute and I'm on the button, I'm in pretty good shape and I don't need to push something more marginal since I am not in danger of the blinds hitting me soon and I can likely get a better hand within the next orbit to push with, plus I win more in the event of an uncontested pot. On the flip side, I might consider pushing with a hand a little more marginal if the next blind increase is likely to land right on me and really take a big chunk of my stack and not give my pushes the kind of power I'd like to have behind them.
In the books M is a pretty academic principal but in practice I think there are a lot of metagame factors that go into it as well. For instance, this weekend I was playing live and I picked up AQ with an M of about 8 in early position and I pushed it. It folded to me uncontested. The very next hand I'm dealt KK and I do it again and it folded to me uncontested. The very next hand I'm dealt AA. I actually have enough now to put in a standard raise but I push it again, knowing that I have a reasonably high chance of now getting called, which I do and I double up. Later on I am playing against mostly the same opponents, the blinds have chipped away again, and I was able to push with a couple of more marginal hands because they remembered the AA I pushed with earlier. |
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Arnold_Snyder
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Las Vegas
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| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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| mchilger wrote: | I'll try to explain a little better my prior post. When Harrington wrote his books, the majority of players would need very strong hands to call all-in pushes. Given this, the correct strategy was to frequently push with small stacks given the high probability of stealing the blinds.
After Harrington, many, many players adopted his push all-in strategy. The better players have adapted and now have started calling much weaker than pre-Harrington. Therefore, weak pushes are not as profitable as before since the steal rate has declined. However, the profitability of pushing with real hands has increased since you get called so much weaker than pre-Harrington.
I'm not as aggressive pushing with the medium low M's like Harrington suggests. I'm willing to take my chances a little longer hoping to get a real hand since there is a decent chance a weak hand might call. So I actually think Harrington is a little outdated, not because his advice was poor, but because players have adjusted so much that a "new" default strategy is needed.
Matthew |
Very interesting, Matthew. When I started playing tournaments in 2003, Harrington's books had not yet been published. I started playing the small buy-in "fast" format tournaments and realized that everything I'd read was really addressing the major events where players had a lot of chips and a lot of time. All I saw was that in the fast events, the tight players seemed to get nowhere and the loose players kept making final tables. So, I developed the strategy that is contained in Poker Tournament Formula. The strategies in PTF are probably the loosest strategies that have ever been published for poker tournaments.
After that book came out and I started playing the slower format tournaments, I again noticed that the tight players were getting nowhere and the loose players kept cleaning up. By this time, HOH II had become very popular so I really studied the book and realized that a large portion of the tight players I was encountering were "M" players who kept waiting for hands, getting short, then desperate, then going crazy pushing all-in. Since I hadn't been playing "pro-level" tournaments previous to Harrington's books, I had no idea that tournament players were even tighter before his books came out! I thought the strategies in his books were so tight and his books were so well-received that he had actually tightened up tournament players, not loosened them up! I simply had no historical perspective.
But if anyone thinks the strategies in PTF1 are loose, wait till they read PTF2! My strategies in slow-format tournaments are much looser than my strategies in fast tournaments. They're not based so much on preflop play as postflop, and not so much on all-in moves, but they definitely make any other poker tournament book I've seen look tight by comparison. |
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emmapeel
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Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 2533
Location: Edinburgh
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 6:47 am Post subject: |
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For me, there is a lot of questionable content in the HOH books but I still think they are brilliant. Myself and a few others I've noticed have mentioned using a combination of HOH and PTF to play in tournaments. I think this style is most fun and may be more profitable than HOH alone.
Brilliant though I think Harringtons books are, I think they should be seriously questioned. After several readings some of the advice doesn't make sense anymore. I like the way that PTF has seemed to rebel against this; and may prove to be on the right track.
For me, it seems right to use the advice in both books.
EP |
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MrFixxiT
Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 126
Location: Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't read Snyder's book and am just finishing the HOH books, but Harrington says openly that he is pretty tight and you have two other kinds of profitable styles and you should follow the one that suits you most. As you see in most 'problem' hands in his books and especially the 3rd one (workbook) you see that they follow some of the more aggressive (and loose) players in the field; a significant amount of times Harrington does not agree with the plays, but even then he sees why that play could be a good play for some of those players.
I know that HOH does not have the definite strategy to beat all players and become the best player in the world (or even a lot less than that) and I'm not saying that Harrington knows all.
I also know that Harrington does illustrate the tight play and does not elaborate enough on the other two more aggressive styles, but that's probably just because he doesn't like to play that way and therefore is not experienced enough in that style to advocate and explain that style. But he does show some examples of those kind of players.
Disclaimer: this wasn't meant to be like a 'Harrington fanboy'  reply and I'm just a beginner with absolutely no experience; I just wanted to share my thoughts. |
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Doc T River
Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 305
Location: amongst my poker books
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| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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There has been some interest over at 2plus2 about PTFII and it is too bad, given the atmosphere and number of people who used to post on the book section of the forum over there but have been banned, that this interest will probably not be requited.
And it sounds like it is going to be a very interesting book. |
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jeffnc
Mason's Favorite
Joined: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 7222
Location: NC, USA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Doc T River wrote: | | There has been some interest over at 2plus2 about PTFII and it is too bad, given the atmosphere and number of people who used to post on the book section of the forum over there but have been banned.... |
I'm sorry, did someone mention my name? heh heh. That is a definite inbred, dark ages philosophy over there, where only certain ideas are allowed and hypocrisy rules. Too bad, indeed.
Two other comments I'd like to make: HoH Vol 2 is indeed a great book, at least in context, because of what Arnold already said - it was looser than before with regard to medium- to short-stack play. It was a revelation to standard tight-aggressive players such as myself.
And the second comment, is that I don't understand why some authors choose to make themselves unavailable to customer questions. They're not under any legal or ethical rule to do so, but it alienates customers when every other author will explain himself, but one such as Harrington will not. I like him as an author, but over time I've gotten increasingly annoyed that he wouldn't participate in any discussion with his customers. That's actually uncommon nowadays. |
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nsidestrate
Suited's Love Monkey
Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 22457
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Poker is a game of equilibrium. For some time, people tended to give all-in moves way too much respect and short-stack shoves were rarely called by marginal hands. I remember calling a short stack with TT in a live event and getting an enormous amount of grief for my "reckless" play after he turned over KK. When HoH came out, a short stack shove had enormous folding equity, because there were many players who would not call without AA-QQ/AK. Calling with AQ or JJ was seen as foolish. Fast forward to today where people call with a shockingly wide range and HoH looks wrong. I think it was brilliant advice in its day and I believe that his book single-handedly changed short stack strategy. So many people followed his advice that now big stacks are calling way too light and it is now often a better strategy to wait for a big hand, because you are going to get called light. I don't think Harrington was wrong so much as the game changed. In fact, I think the game changed in large measure because of HoH. |
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mchilger
ITH Founder and Poker Author
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 5808
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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Nside, I agree with your assessment. I was trying to say the same thing but I thinked you explained it better. Harrington was spot on for when he wrote it, but now the game has evolved (in large part due to Harrington) so that different strategies are needed.
Matthew |
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LuckyLiam
Joined: 22 Oct 2003
Posts: 293
Location: Warrington - England
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| Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject: Give Harrington the respect he desrves |
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Just a shout out to say that Dan Harrington has one heck of a track records in tournaments and I think that everything he has written is well worth reading and thinking about. Hey, do you really think he has had the success he has enjoyed to date just by playing squeaky tight and waiting for the cards to come along. Come on, pull the other one!... ;O)
Yes, Harrington is way too tight at times and places too much emphasis on cards in tournaments but his advice for cash games is pretty much on the money and some of his hand analysis is just unrivalled in both its depth and clarity. Much can be learnt from his tournament books as well - ideally combine what he has to say with the looser approach advocated by Snyder.
Dan Harrington - thanks for all you have taught me as a poker player. Respect. |
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