Single table Tournament poker

[AleoMagus]

Hi all

I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I have decided to post anyways to get a feel for whether my efforts of late have been in vain.

I am currently writing a book on single table tournament strategy

How many would be interested in such a book, and more importantly, how many would be interested in such a book from someone like myself?

The thing is, I am the worst kind of poker author, which is to say that my poker is probably not as good as it should be in order to write a book. I am not a world class player but I am a winning small buy-in single table tournament player who has some things to say.

This all started when I made a post on the one-table-torneys forum called 'How to beat the party 10+1'. This post I have since lived to regret as so many are hailing it as a great initial guide for playing sngs - which it is not.

That post would probably be a good place to start for a very bad player, but I knew I could do better and I intended to improve upon it and post again. Well, about 40 pages later I am still writing and a book is starting to seem like a better idea. My intention is to self publish through an excellent agency (trafford publishing) here in Victoria, though I would entertain other options if they came up.

What seems like a better idea to me than publishing by myself, is to seek out a top player known to frequent the large buy-in sngs and have him/her review and make additions to the original material. In this way, I can add some credibility beyond my own very limited experience.

This said, a part of me hesitates to look too high for help as the book is not geared towards big buy-in sng strategy anyways and the game is somewhat different at that level. In addition, while I do not like the strategy card style of my initial sng stratgey post, I do want to present at least an introductory approach to sng strategy that is formulaic and based more on solid play than creativity and advanced concepts that may be beyond the average player. I will discuss the drawbacks of overly formulaic play and will stress the neccessity of more advanced play if a player ever wants to move beyond 30+3, but the first goal for my intended audience is becoming a winner at 30+3 and below.

A few other points which I'd like feedback on

One idea which I have been toying with lately is to include a number (1-5 most likely) of complete (winning) tournament summaries with commentary throughout. This would be presented in a sort of Chernev 'Logical chess: move by move' style where a reader could follow along and go through the decision making process along with the book. Would this be too cumbersome or would this add greatly to such a book?

Another Idea which I fully intend to implement is a section on the mathematics of sng record keeping. This would include such basic calculations as ITM, ROI, etc... as well as more advanced statistical info like standard deviation, risk of ruin based on win rate and current bankroll, and % confidence in results to +/- $x.

Also, I have not yet written any kind of introductory material. Does it make any sense at all to explain to a person buying a book on single table tournament strategy what single table tournaments are, the rules of poker, basic hold'em concepts, etc...? I think not, but maybe I just don't want to go through the drudgery of writing about all that.

The book is geared towards online tournaments with a structure like that of Partypoker. I fully intend to discuss appropriate startegy changes for better tourney structures like stars as well, but the emphasis will be on the party skins.

Finally, This book is thus far limited exclusively to No-Limit Hold'em sngs. How important is it for a book of this type to cover limit Hold'em or even other poker game types?

Given my current rate of writing, I expect to have about a 120-150 page manuscript (more than this if I include tournament walkthroughs) availiable before August. Assuming 1-3 months beyond that for professional editing, expert technical review and trafford's setup/print time, I'd expect this book to be avaliable before Oct or Nov at the latest. Again, it is possible that I am getting ahead of myself, but I feel like I cannot be the only one who sees a need for this particular type of book and I think that speed is important for this project.

Any comments appreciated
Brad S