Rock, Paper, Scissors
 

I'm currently reading Arnold Snyder's "The Poker Tournament Formula." The title of the post refers to the way he approaches playing decisions based upon the three weapons you have - Chips (Rock), Cards (Paper), and Position (Scissors).

So far, this book has impressed me because it treats the game in an entirely different way than anything else I've read. The truth is, while many poker books tell you "poker is not a card game, its a betting game that uses cards," they usually then proceed to follow the formula of "You have XY, the flop comes ABC, yadda yadda."

So far, and I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book, I've been impressed by the way he outlines situational hand play with no mention of what cards you hold or what cards come on the board.

I'm also impressed with his "patience factor" of a tournament - an objective analysis of tournament structure and how it guides how much emphasis you need to put on cards versus situations.

Even though he begins the book with a section for beginners on the rules of the game, I don't think this is a book for beginners. I think you need a basic grounding in ABC poker to get the most out of it.

As I get through the book and experiment with his approach, I'll fill you in. So far, this book gets a :thumbsup: from me.

Sounds cool. I've often though a poker book written without talking about the cards you hold would be interesting. I just didn't think anyone could pull it off.

Cards are mentioned in this book, as one weapon in your arsenol (in addition to position and chip stack). He compares each weapon to a weapon in a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Chip Stack being Rock, Cards being Paper and Position being scissors. In this formula, like in the game, Your Chip Stack beats your Position (rock beats scissors), Your Cards beat your Chip Stack (Paper beats rock) and your position beat your cards (scissors beat paper).

In other words you can play a hand without position if you have a big stack because of the effects your stack will have and chips trump position. Likewise, your chip stack can not scare away premium holdings no matter what their stack sze, thus cards trump chips.... and finally you can play a marginal to bad hand as long as you have good positioning, thus position trumps cards.

He mentions how each are important, however players usually bust out of a tournament on good cards (when they are either outdrawn or up against monsters), rather than when making positional plays

Im about 2/3 through this book so far -- interesting read to say the least