I am just re-reading this book in the past month and something went off in my head.

I read this a few years ago and completely dismissed it as garbage.  It seemed as if what he was writing did not make sense in any mathematical sense at all. 

However, now that I have more experience, it seems as his theories may make sense, even if his applications are incorrect. 

One example is a hand I commented in on 2p2 a little over a week ago about a live hand.  Basically, the player was faced with an all in bet on the flop needing 37% equity to call, but only had 33% equity with his hand versus the range of the opponent.  So mathematically this is a fold. 

However, he had 22BBs and a slightly smaller than average stack and there was almost 40 BBs in the pot.  If he calls and loses he's out.  If he folds, he has a 22 BB stack with a long way to go to the bubble and FT and most likely he will bust out.  If he calls and wins he gets the big stack at the table, 60 BBs and enough of a stack to continue playing small ball poker for almost another hour, with which he can continue accumulating chips. 

With 22 BBs, you need to be more selective and pretty soon, you are really looking for a hand to get it all PF and hoping for a double up. 

You see, it takes chips to win chips.  Just like economics, it takes money to make money.  While we are taking a a small - on cEV.  I think using utility as a guide, there are times where you will see there is more value in winning the pot than pure pot odds will indicate. 

Let's look at the above example.  I will use the Parx MTTs as an example since I play them most.  Imagine 300 players entered, and 27 cash.  there 3M chips in play. About 1/2 way through the field you have an average stack of about 20BBs (about 20k with 500/1000/100 blinds).  With that stack, you are about 80% to bustout with all things being equal and only about 6% to make the FT.  If you take a small - at that point for a 60 BBs stack or bust out, winning the 60 BBs stack increases you chances to cash to win are now 2% (about 0.7% before the hand), your chances to make the FT are now about 18% and your chances of cashing are almost 60% now.

But that doesn't take into account the additional pots and chips that are yours to win now because almost every one else is nursing a a small stack. 

So all in all, if anyone has read this book and dismissed it, I would urge you to look at it again.  And any who hasn't take a look at the book.  The theory of utility is worth the read.  However, when reading, be careful and use your own judgment as to how to proceed.  I'm not sold that his applications are the best way to apply the theory. 

It does in a way take into account some of the concepts he talks about.  Basically, what I am getting so far is that everyone should look at their game and start recognizing when you are getting desperate and do something to change that before you actually get desperate.  If you wait for 7 BBs to get it in and double up, you only have 14 BBs now and the next level you are all in or fold again and playing this short gives you very few options.  If however, you can amass a pile of chips then you have many more options on how to play hands.  You can play small ball while everyone else sits there waiting for the right time to shove.  And having this ability, will actually create many more chip making opportunities for you. 

So in essence (and he shows examples by Men Ngyuen (sp) and John Phan) on proper times to take more risk to build the bigger stack or bust out trying, but then he showed how after they succeeded in building the stack, they were able to dominate their tables and make very deep runs because they knew to take the risk earlier on. 

If you have a deep stack, playing small ball is best, but if you start losing the ability to play small ball, (or may lose it soon) then that is where you need to start thinking about taking a little risk to be able to continue playing small ball when it is beyond everyone else's capability, due to their chip limitation.  It sort of fits in with what I read about Erick Lindgren's philosophy. 

I think the fundamental problem with the strategy suggested in this book is that it is possible to be a big stack and at the same time to have a small effective stack - because your opponents don't have the depth to go along with you.  If you have 60 BBs and start opening quite often, and most of your opponents only have 20 to 25, you should run into frequent all in 3-bets.  You are making it easy for them to get all their chips in and either pick up the blinds, antes, and your opening raise without a fight, or to double up with what is probably a race.  "Small ball" requires your opponents to be deep enough so that a 3-bet by them is risky since you can 4-bet.

There are probably spots in an MTT where a big stack is worth slightly more than it's ICM value suggests because you can really let fly and steal a ton of blinds.  But for the most part, I would expect to find most of them at bubble time.  In my experience, live tournaments are not always structured nicely in the middle - I often see big jumps in the blinds that result in tables where almost every player is in survival mode even though they seemed to be comfortable a level before.

I forgot to add one benefit of having a 60 BB stack while everyone is 20 BBs or less is that we have the luxury of patience for the time being if the table is 3b shoving too often to make stealing viable.  We can wait for the right hands/situations to raise and not have our stack terribly depleted by having to fold a whole orbit or two.