Has HOH2 hurt anyone else?

[wegs the wegs]

I read HOH vol 1 from about April til June (I'm a really slow reader. As I was reading it my finishes in MTT's really improved, making the money far more often than had previously in my poker lifetime. In mid-July, once I had finished the book and re-read a few important chapters I went on a really good streak of tournaments, playing 10 online tournaments in about two weeks, moneying in 7 of them with an 11th, 7th, 3rd and 1st place finish included. I was feeling pretty good and pretty confident, playing exceptionally well with a tight aggressive strategy.

In early August I picked up HOH vol 2 and working my way through it. Ever since then I have played like CRAP in tournaments. I always seem to be overly aggressive, noticing too much that my stack is getting a little too small, overstealing, and committing all my chips far too often with the worst hand. I keep telling myself that it's the correct play, to be aggressive and avoid the low 'zones' as much as possible. I believe I have moneyed maybe two or three times since August with no big payouts.

Am I missing something here? Am I overthinking these situations? I knew before vol 2 that it is a no-no calling with small pocket pairs when the blinds are huge and my stack is not. And I knew that waiting around for AA and KK in the middle stages of tournaments is not healthy. But where is the line? Any suggestions? Yes I will post hands in the MTT forum. Should I reread Vol 1 to try and have that mindframe while playing again? Has anyone else struggled with being too aggressive after reading Vol 2? Should I cross-post this in the MTT forum?

I apologize for the 50 questions, but I'm dying for answers here.

Hmm, I'd have to say my experience has been that it MAY have hurt my results, or it may be variance. Can't tell really as I haven't played enough SNG & tournaments. I think after HOH2 I started to play weak/tighty and that's a death sentence. If you search the MTT forum for the last couple of weeks you should see several posts about M and focusing too much on it to the detriment of actually playing the people at the table.

[Niediam]

You need to go and learn about variance in MTTs. They come back and read your post. You will be embarassed. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
You need to go and learn about variance in MTTs. They come back and read your post. You will be embarassed. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my point too. I think it's probably variance, but being over concerned about M will hurt anyone's game.

sorry but what do you mean by "M"?

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
sorry but what do you mean by "M"?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's referring to the classic Fritz Lang movie starring Peter Lorre - Dan Harrington recommends watching it before every tournament you enter, because there's a scene where the German authorities in lieu of searching for the child predator are playing poker and one of the police officers makes a really good call on fifth street.

[ QUOTE ]
sorry but what do you mean by "M"?

[/ QUOTE ]

'M' is calculated as your stack divided by the total of the blinds and antes for one full circuit of the table, ie the pot size before pre-flop betting. It was created by Paul "X-22" Magriel (sorry if I misspelled that) a professional backgammon and poker player who incidnetally knocked Phil Helmuth out of the main event this year.

In HOH2, Dan Harrrington talks about the range of plays open to you based on your M. Think about a close football or basketball game, as the time runs out the teams are more limited in their choice of plays, in football, you have the two minute drill and then the hail mary pass. In poker, when a player's M is greater than 20 a player has the ability to use his entire skill set, between 10-20, a player loses the ability to play many speculative hands, bewteen 5-10 you're down to premium hands, between 1-5 your choice is down to any pair, or any two 10 or higher and you should be pushing all-in everytime you get these hands so long as no one is in the pot before you. Under 1, you're in the dead zone and no matter what you do, you'll get called.

[megabit]

Actually I have found just the opposite to be the case. I do see how if you misapplied the concepts they could hurt your game. You need to remember the 1st in vig and not just push because your M is low now. I don’t really change my play much until my M gets around 5. At 10 I am concerned and watching it close but not ready to just shove all my chips in or fold.

Mike

I found that at first, as I played and was trying out some of the concepts I read, I'd start overemphasizing what I had just been learning, like I'd semi-bluff almost 90% of the time. It was just because I wasn't putting it all together and was still really new to poker, that I was blowing money and games. After I read through both books and played a little more, I steadied and got back to winning.

[benkahuna]

It hurt me too when I overapplied the theory in it related to low M. I found I was already pretty damn aggressive and rather than using low M as an excuse to be aggressive (particularly later in a tournament), I try to just use it to make good decisions. I also reread some of HoH v.2 related to M and found I'd misremembered how to apply it so some extent. After I made the adjustments, my results improved and are still overall better in tournaments.

[wegs the wegs]

[ QUOTE ]
You need to go and learn about variance in MTTs. They come back and read your post. You will be embarassed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I figured that this response would come up. I do understand that calling the sample size small is an understatement. I do know about variance.

The topic I'm trying to hit on here is not "I haven't cashed in awhile and Vol2 is to blame. I apologize if it came off that way. In the tournaments I have played lately I have had NO shot of winning, where before reading Vol 2 I always felt like I had at least a shot to contend. Now it seems like my hand is always going in when I'm an 80/20 dog due to me making a move with QJo or 67s once too many and running into a much much better hand. Doubling up with a solid hand is certainly easier than trying to double your stack with multiple steal attempts.

Overall I'm just becoming the player that the good players love to run into in the second hour of an online tournament. A maniac trying to run over the rest of the field without the cards to do so.

Thanks for all the responses so far. I will work my way through some of the MTT threads that were recommended for 'M'. Any more thoughts?

[Niediam]

This makes little sense to me. You are saying that you have a shot to win when you are low on chips but decided to be blinded to death but when you try to increase your chip stack you have no shot to win? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Jbrochu]

I would recommend that you search the MTT forum for posts regarding the M concept. There has been a lot of good discussion regarding applying (and misapplying) M.

Also, search for a post by "adanthar" where there is a very good discussion regarding some poor examples in HoH2. I think this thread is in the one-table-tournament forum.

My own thought on M is that it's just a measuring device for how aggressive you should be, and this device needs to be properly calibrated for the tournaments you play. This takes some practice and experience.

I've also noticed that many players pick up on the aggressiveness Harrington advocates, but forget about the situational considerations he discusses. For example, one hand might be a clear push had you been playing very tight for the last couple of orbits, but a clear fold if you had just pushed the last 3 hands.

[betgo]

I don't agree with with what HOH2 says about playing aggressively in the orange zone. I think you don't have a lot of options with that stack and need to play tight. I don't think winding up in the red zone is something that should be particularly avoided.

I started a thread about this in the MTT forum and was called dumb, stupid, and retarded for saying a red zone stack can be played more effectively than an orange zone stack.

[steamboatin]

[ QUOTE ]
The topic I'm trying to hit on here is not "I haven't cashed in awhile and Vol2 is to blame.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gee, I don't know how anyone could have gotten that impression. Oh wait, they read the title of your post.

I will second the motion that you do not understand how much variance is involved in MTT's. If you understood the high level of variance, you wouldn't have made this post.

P.S. It is NOT Dan's fault!

[rockythecat99]

OH jeez. Here we go again. Maybe just maybe you are misapplying his concepts. HOH1 was like a cookbook. If you followed it to a T you would get descent results. HOH2 is more about making you think about situations and not a abc guide to how you should play.

[wegs the wegs]

Alright, I'm going to try one more time to redeem myself in this thread by trying to make my thoughts and my words say the same thing, it hasn't worked so far. If I still get flamed out so be it and that's the end of this thread for me.

First of all, I am not blaming anything, repeat ANYTHING, on Harrington. I apologize for giving this impression. In no way, shape, or form am I trying to argue that Harrington is wrong, is giving bad advice, or that I know better. Again, this isn't an "HOHv2 is to blame" thread.

Second, I know that I am misapplying the concepts. I understand that the book was trying to get the reader to think more creatively in the back half of the tournament than just "Wait for the nuts". I know that I'm trying to be too creative and too aggressive, misapplying the ideas stressed in the book. It is all my fault.

Third, I do understand concept of variance. I reread my posts and they do come off sour, but that was just my words not catching up to my thoughts. Playing your absolute best every single tournament and you'll still nearly always flame out. What I'm trying to get at here is that I am no where near playing my best poker at this time. Not even close. I'm making mistakes that I have never made before, which pretty much kills any chance of me having success in tournaments. Is HOHv2 the culprit? Go back to my second point for the answer. I am trying too hard to use his advice and that has turned me into a bad tournament player. Once again... all my fault.

Overall, I was looking for advice on where to turn to get myself to stop misapplying the advice that Harrington has given. Thank you to Jbrochu for pointing me in a very good direction with the HOHv2 hand example thread. This is the type of stuff I was looking for.

Other than that I think I'm done and I hope I'm no longer misunderstood. Thanks again one and all.

[Shandrax]

An interesting fact is that in this years WSOP the pros did much better than in the last years. You can be sure that all amateurs have read HoH2. The M concept was created by Paul Magriel and while X-22 is pretty good, his results don't put him in the top 20 to say at least.

Personally I think HoH2 is awesome, but who am I to judge it?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Shandrax:

HOH2 wasn't released until the second week of June. That makes it very unlikely that more than just a small percent of the entrants at the WSOP would had read it. next year, however, should ba a different story.

best wishes,
Mason

[eboller]

[ QUOTE ]
The M concept was created by Paul Magriel and while X-22 is pretty good, his results don't put him in the top 20 to say at least.

[/ QUOTE ]

M is just a measurement.

Eric

[ QUOTE ]
An interesting fact is that in this years WSOP the pros did much better than in the last years.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I put this down to the pros having to adapt their games, and because they are pros, I also assume they are better at it than just about everyone else. Dr. Schoonmaker had a good article earlier in Oct. discussing the evolution of a poker player. Good read.

I've read and re-read HOH1/2 maybe 10 times. There should be a very big disclaimer on each page: "Most people you play against are donkeys and will call your semi-bluffs, one pair pushes, etc." It's a domkey minefield out there where your continuation bets/SB pushes, etc., get litte respect. Just be careful because the chances of a donkey getting you are reasonable: yeah you can make the "right" play 10 times and escape the donkeys but on the 11th time one of them will get you. If you watch the WSOP you'll see what I mean.

I read Harrington on Hold Em this summer and I immediately began to lose after applying the concepts. However, I don't blame HOH one bit. What happened was this. I had played using a very tight-aggressive strategy up until that point and had done well. After reading HOH, I had more knowledge at my disposal on reading the flop, making continuation bets, semi-bluffs, etc. Yet I was playing against players who were far better than me on playing after the flop. I couldn't believe I was losing so much and so I went back and read Miller's Getting Started in Hold Em. I went back to basically playing a beginner strategy - raising with good hands and getting out when I didn't hit the flop. I realized that despite early good results (I've been playing seriously for about a year), I was still a beginner and that I needed to develop my post-flop skills much more. I was getting creamed by trying to use Harrington's concepts against better players. I think the important lesson for me was this: stay with a winning strategy, however basic, until you have really mastered the other concepts - and don't try to master those concepts by practicing against players who are better than you. On the other hand, I've given myself the liberty of practicing HOH concepts in very small stakes home games against weak players and it has worked well for me. That's my two cents.

good post.

[MCS]

I bought it, but I don't play tournaments! So I'm safe! Ha ha!

Suckers.