I think every poker book should have a disclaimer in its foreword.

“Attention: This book will only help you in 4-8 limit against grandpa”

or

“Warning: This book is only applicable if you are playing in the WSOP”

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy. There is no strategy that performs equally well in a 3-6 limit table and an online tournament with 5 minute blinds.

I am almost done with a book which does actually have a disclaimer like this. So far, this book has had a more positive impact on my results than any other I have read. I don’t necessarily think it is because the strategies in the book are superior, but rather that the strategies in the book are targeted at a very specific type of game, and the book goes to great lengths to emphasize that the techniques are narrow by design. This book is for fast No-Limit tournaments, and nothing else. The book is The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder.

Prior to trying a tournament, I had read 4 books on Poker. I felt that they were all pretty good books, and they helped me quite a bit in my 3/6 limit games. Unfortunately, I was a total chump any time I played short handed, heads up, or in any form of tournament structure. Unfortunately, I got extremely good cards in my first online tournament, so it took a while for me to realize that my strategy was crap. It took several games of blinding down to nothing to realize that I was doing something wrong.

Poker Tournament Formula has been extremely beneficial to my tournament performance. Previously, my fate was entirely decided by my cards. If I got the good cards, I did well. If I didn’t, I blinded away with a whimper. Now I realize that there are opportunities to win chips in between the good cards. There is actually more to winning than just to the strength of your cards…who’d a thunk it?

The key psychological point that makes these techniques work is that everybody’s chips are finite — and due to the blind structure of fast tournaments they will never last. Even though a lot of people play very loosely early in an attempt to double up, almost all players reach a “scare point” where they fear being knocked out of the tournament. Even when you’re playing online with play money, people want to win. In a regular ring game, chips can be effectively infinite. If you go all-in and lose, you can buy more chips. In these fast tournaments however, when you run out of chips you lose. This changes the way people play.

There are desperation plays, power plays, steals, and bluffs that occur in these tournaments that you will almost never see in a ring game. The ever-increasing blinds are a constant pressure on all players. Nobody is immune to the blinds — not even the biggest stack. The tournament and blind structure drastically alter the nature of the game. This book does an excellent job of quantifying this fact, as well as giving you powerful set of tools to profit from this structure.

The only real down side I can see to this book is that the advice is so specific to fast tournaments that if you attempt to use these strategies in regular ring games you will quickly lose your money. Like I said, though, the Author is very clear about this point. Not only does he warn you that the strategies will not work in regular ring games, but he also warns you that they will be of limited value in very slow tournaments.

The book is an entertaining read as well, and has numerous anecdotes and colorful stories to break up the material. He can get a little heavy on the calculation from time to time, but that is to be expected in any book that delves into odds. Overall, I think this is a book worth reading. If you intend on playing fast tournaments, I think this book is a must-read, if only to understand the tricks your opponents are going to try on you to steal your pots.

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