In 2006 Arnold Snyder had come out with ‘The Poker Tournament Formula’.

The book was very successful. Earlier this year Snyder came out with a sequel titled ‘The Poker Tournament Formula 2’ and subtitled ‘Advanced Strategies for Big Money Tournaments’.

The sequel to has been equally appreciated. Poker legend and winner of two WSOP titles, Doyle Brunson has praised the book. Brunson writes, “There are few books that substantially increase a player’s chances of winning tournaments. This powerful work is one of them. I recommend you get this book.” Both books have been published by Cardoza Publishing.

Perhaps the most important topic discussed by Snyder is the power of chip utility. He says that this is the real secret to winning tournaments. Other topics covered include utility ranks, tournament structures, small-ball and long-ball strategies, patience factors, and tournament phases. The types of tournaments covered in ‘The Poker Tournament Formula 2’ are characterized by slower structures. The big buy-in, pro-level events of the World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour and other major poker circuits fall in this category. Hence this book will be ideal for those players who want to move up from the low buy-in tournaments at the local casinos or from online tournaments to the major live events the industry offers. His earlier book covered tournaments with faster structures.

Snyder’s thinking is revolutionary and he punctures many commonly held poker myths in his book, including views held by some poker greats. Systematically Snyder explains why these players are wrong and demonstrates that they lose because of their incorrect beliefs. One of the poker authors that Snyder has taken head on is Dan Harrington. Like Snyder Harrington has had a background in blackjack. Speaking about this aspect of his book Snyder said, “I explain exactly where Harrington made his errors, why Harrington’s strategies are incorrect not only for fast tournaments, but for tournaments with slow blind structures as well, and why poker tournament structure, which Harrington ignores, is a key factor in devising optimal tournament Strategies”.

Another poker myth that Snyder debunks is known as the “reverse chip value theory”. This theory was put forward by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. It states that the more chips a player has the less each individual chip is worth and the fewer chips a player has the more each chip is worth. Snyder calls the duo “math heads”.  According to Snyder chips are not merely money equivalents. They perform a number of functions. They are used to steal blinds and antes, to view more flops, to drive competitors out of pots and to unearth information. Therefore chips have a utility value. According to Snyder when a player has more chips he can comfortably engage in all these functions with his chips thereby giving each chip greater value. When a player has fewer chips he has necessarily to restrict the usage of his chips and therefore each chip has lower value.

Snyder was one of the seven original inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. He has written extensively on blackjack before switching to writing on poker in 2006.