This is a free strategy tool for your online poker tournaments at Poker Stars or any other site for that matter.
Tournament action with Daniel Negreanu and Scotty Nguyen at a WPT final table. Scotty tried to push Daniel off his top pair on the turn, and then Daniel reraised all in, forcing Scotty to back down after some show.
MzoneReport: How Space Invaders Video Game Made Me a Better Poker Tournament Player
I know it sounds implausible but hear me out. As a holdover from the 1980s video game addicts I have a thing for classic titles like Galaga, Pacman, Asteroids, 1942 and yes, Space Invaders. Having racked up many proud moments with my friends who were just waiting their turn to bust my high score, these games became ingrained in my teenage social evolution.
Fast forward to 2007 and I am kind of doing the same thing, only now with online poker. This hobby however (after deep psychological wounding and healing), being turned into a full time income by way of playing low limit poker tournaments at several popular poker sites.
The thing is, without Space Invaders it may have turned into a complete disaster with me hanging about in the lower wrungs of addicted online players always chasing, never coming out ahead. How did Space Invaders transform my poker game you may ask?
Well about 3 or 4 years ago, I was trying to manage my bankroll by playing sit and go games and doing a fine job at building it up, albeit slowly. So slowly that I often went into multi table tournaments hoping for a big score, but I kept failing and would have to revert back to my sit and go action to keep my bankroll from dipping.
Around that same time my friend sent me a link to a website that had Space Invaders as one of their free games. I jumped on it and started playing, forgetting I had already signed up for a multi table tournament. Deeply engrossed in my long forgotten teenage video game era, a window pops up from the background and tells me to fold, check or raise my Q6os. It was an easy decision and back I went to the real game – killing crawling aliens in strategic formation. KJs fold. ATos fold. 63s fold, etc. etc. My hand was getting sore, but there was no way anything was stopping me from relving the 1980s. K6s fold. QJos fold. Wait – KK with a raise before me. I was almost incenced the poker window had bothered me with this hand. I reraise and two callers. The flop is AK6 rainbow. Somebody bets and the othe dude reraises. I reraise the both of them and I got 2 monkeys in a pot with a weak hand, and a weak draw to my Kings full by the turn. They were drawing dead and I tripled up - fine with me and back to my game.
So taken I was with Space Invaders I completely missed the 5 minute break when I usually take a bathroom visit not really paying attention to my position in the tournament.
Before I knew it, the second hour was up and I sat with a stack fifteen times the starting stack and four times the average stack. I only played about 8 to 10 hands those first two hours, because I was so engrossed in Space Invaders.
Still killing little martians after the third, fourth, then 5th hour of the tournament when I looked up, paused Space Invaders and discovered I had made it to the top 20 of a field of more than 1300 players, playing none other than those infrequently dealt – good hands!
I can tell you now that I finished first in that tournament and won my biggest prize ever of nearly $2,000US. It was my first final table and my first win, and I was barely paying attention for the first 4 hours while becoming the chip leader with the last 15 players and never relinquinshing my lead. I discovered something about my game that day and have never looked back. Thanks to Space Invaders, I finally understood what tight-aggressive really meant. True story!
"I've been receiving your videos for a few weeks now, and thought I ought to write and thank you for the amazing impact they have had on my results.
Each video is informative, instructional and the point of each lesson is clear and simple to understand and apply.
I have learned a huge amount from them."
"It continues to amaze me that you give away this hard won knowledge. I'm more than happy to take advantage of your generosity as a teacher. It's also very nice that you take the time to use decent video software. The visuals are crisp, and the audio is clear. The guys out there selling their "Sure Fire Systems!!" could learn some video production tips. "
"Hi Marty, You asked for some feedback on this video, so I thought I would oblige.
Basically.. EVERYONE WHO PLAYS POKER SHOULD WATCH THIS BEFORE THEY START"
"Your video series have completely transformed my play and my confidence. I have even started to see players mistakes, such as the fish who wont lay down AK and the like. My favourites are the all in with AQ on a full table - dont you just love them!"
Last year, a new poker tournament book was released by Arnold Snyder called “The Poker Tournament Strategy”. It is a well written book from a seasoned gambling professional that brings insight into fast poker tournaments with an aggressive betting and bluffing strategy.
What Snyder did so well in this book was simply to offer a new perspective on how to play poker tournaments without card strength, utilizing your other advantages at the table, namely position and chips stack to pressure other players out of pots. In essence it’s the quintessential “small ball” game that requires reading skills, an intense understanding of the structure of the tournament, and, well, nerves of steel would help too.
I wrote a very positive review of this book upon it’s release because it presented new ideas that were contrary to the 2+2 writing clan of Sklansky, Harrington, and Malmuth. In fact that forum got into heated debates with Snyder’s forum as a result of Snyder’s book poking holes in a Sklansky’s drone game. And yes, it is still going on.
I contacted Arnold Snyder and chatted with him about how his strategy could be adapted for online play, especially in the lower range. He thought it was a great thing to pursue and I mentioned some tournaments that I frequently play. We decided to give Arnold some time to play in these tournaments and test his theories. Our plan was to compare research and present that in some articles to help promote his book even more and offer some tips on my websites.
I waited.
I waited for Arnold while rereading his book and trying to use his strategies myself in online tournaments. The short of it was - it wasn’t working for me. So I reverted back to my own mzone based strategy and began winning again.
I tried to get a hold of Arnold again. I waited. No response, no results, and no further contact. It could be that Arnold Snyder may feel he has bigger fish to fry and didn’t want to follow through on this research, which I know would have boosted sales of his book. I mean isn’t winning a tournament what thousands and thousands of online players want to do? Of course they do. I even went to Snyder’s forum and virtually pleaded with players using his system online to come forth and show me you are doing better than me. I got a few select nibbles, but not one had a better record in tournaments that I did.
So was it an opportunity lost? I don’t think so. What I think happened is that Arnold Snyder found the exact same thing as I did. His strategy is simply not profitable in online poker tournaments.
