Poker Book Review: The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder

Snyder is one of the world's foremost gambling authorities, and a long time gambling legend revered by millions players who have made money from his advice. youve read Harrington, Sklansky, and Gordon and are still struggling with your tournament game, then this book may be exactly what you need.

Arnold Snyder has been a professional gambler, blackjack strategist, and poker player for years in the Vegas area. As a successful gambler that makes his living from many types of casino games, Snyder is uniquely qualified in this arena. Whats even better is that he constantly refers in his book to actual tournaments he was in, while exploring his strategies. Further, they are the kind of tournaments that you and I are much more likely to play in, with entry fees ranging from 50 to 500, with moderate sized fields, and vastly quicker structures than the big money tournaments in the WPT and WSOP.

Snyder's new poker book, The Poker Tournament Formula snaps squarely in the face of the great poker writers already mentioned here, at times even pointing out generally accepted strategies among them, while making a sound, mathematical argument throughout the book for entirely different reasoning.



For example, the popular axiom taught by Sklansky in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players and reiterated time and again by others, you need a better hand to call a raise, than you need to make a raise, is vigorously shot down in this book as completely nonsensical when playing time-sensitive, accelerated blind tourneys that have limited opportunities for quality hand play.

Snyder's strategy is predominantly position play, but unlike Sklansky and Harrington, Arnold Snyder plays position virtually blind and pushes his advantage to take pots and chips pre-flop, or at least pre-turn. Its a pressure, luck, survival, rock, paper, scissors, conundrum that he swirls his opponents in and strives to come out on top. In this regard, it is anti-Sklansky play that Snyder claims makes his strategies that much more effective.

Arnold Snyder analyzes, and categorizes the skill level of such tournaments and gives recommendations for playing them. You can read a lot of the strategy basics from Arnolds disciples on his website, but lacking there, and in the book, are specific strategies for low buy-in tournaments online. Although some on Arnold Snyders website claim success using Snyders book, very few step up and admit it. Now, this could be a result of keeping success secrets to themselves, but as for my own trials online, it is simply not what I found.

If I could ask anything more of a very well written, compelling poker book, I would ask Arnold to publish a guide strictly for online poker tournaments with low buy-ins. Then, truly this book would appeal to the poker masses

Poker Book Report Wars: Snyder vs. Sklansky

Arnold Snyder is not new to gambling, but he is a new writing force in the world of poker. Having recently written a ground breaking tournament poker manual, he has ignited a debate of old school verses new school, aggression versus conceding, and blunt force betting verses the fear of losing. With the publication of The Poker Tournament Formula, Arnold Snyder has captured a loyal and expanding audience of strategy-hungry tournament players that contribute to Snyder’s online forum like packs of wolves, frequently taking frisky bites at the old school tournament thinkers.

Collectively, those thinkers are represented (at least ideologically) by David Sklansky the resident professor and writer of Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. This book, now several years since its first publication, and before the boom, put into motion the tight-early and tight-aggressive strategy that simply made common sense of hold’em tournaments. This strategy is guided in nature by the Gap Concept described in Sklansky’s book as “you need a better hand to play against someone who has already opened the betting, than you would need to open yourself”. Even modern superstar writers like Dan Harrington and Phil Gordon use this in their strategies as well, so you know it has to have some merit. As such, it is not unusual to find that squeaky, tight-aggressive player at numerous final tables that has got enough playable cards during the tournament to have survived to the final table.

Survived is the key word here, as he (insert any Sklansky drone) is rarely among the chip leaders. Further, rarely does the player return to a final table, because the basic tight strategy of relying on enough quality hands also has to be fused with having them actually win pots, and hold up throughout the tournament. As Snyder points out with much experience, it is those “quality” hands he gets kicked out of tournaments playing, as opposed to position plays with weak holdings.

Where Snyder feels The Gap is a completely misguided concept is in the smaller buy-in tournaments that many players participate daily, in local casinos, regional events and online poker sites. Snyder feels that this is a lucrative segment, as many players may never have a bankroll big enough for $10,000 and $15,000 entry fees for the WPT and WSOP. However, if you play these smaller tourneys the way Snyder plays them, you will soon enough be able to pay for a $10,000 entry fee!

Snyder breaks these smaller tournaments down, and categorizes them into a skill level based on the chip and blind structure combined with the amount of entries. Depending on the skill level and patience factor of the tournament, your strategy is going to be radically different than anything Sklansky would recommend. The underlining of that strategy is based largely on position play, and pressuring your opponents, who have likely missed the flop as much as you have. This is executed in spite of your hole cards, not because of them. Snyder’s wolves say this strategy works it sheer numbers in large part because of the Sklansky type tournament opponents who know nothing more than to fold out of position or out of flop weakness.

Both writers have forums and both have supporters, and it is interesting to hear some of the challenges put forth from the Snyder Wolves - “specific mistakes in Sklansky's and Malmuth's advice”, “I've been giving a lot of thought to the "Gap Concept" and why it's wrong.”, “Waiting for Sklansky to speak”, “ The burden of proof was Sklansky's, and all he did was add to his errors”, “Sklansky's "proof" is a perfect example of his incompetence at poker logic  and on and on. This is juicy stuff!

All I can say is, between the two of them, someone has got to know what is going on here! All we want to know is how to win a bloody tournament! It seems to me that elements of both strategies are needed to win tournaments. Take a look at players like Daniel Negreneau, Erick Lindgren, Gus Hansen, Greg Raymer or Gavin Smith. They have often made some amazing lay downs to aggressive opponents, but I more often see them playing stuff like QJos, 57s, KTs and even more rubbish hands to not just one raiser, but two! These guys truly understand, like Arnold Snyder, that if you layed down like Sklansky does, you are just not going to see many final tables. By the way, have you seen David Sklansky at a final table recently?

All of the above tournament players, who are definitely more tuned into Snyder’s slant have won big, and won often. Yes, I want some of that.

Marty Smith is webmaster and book reviewer for www.PokerBookReport.com

Slansky’s Gap Concept, and is it Still Relevant.
That situation however, requires you to play a long-ball style of game, being rather predictable. Its not a poor, or even ineffective strategy by any means, but a sure pick-off for bluffs, and limiting small pots.

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David Sklansky
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Erick Lindgren