harington vol 2 color zone strategy

In this book it talks about M or your ratio of one round of betting to your chip stack ... it says having enough to get through 6 - 10 rounds is a bad number ... but that seems good to me ... like if a round is 300 ( 100 sb 200bb) and you have 3000 in chips, that seems like you still have some room....has anyone read this book .. id like some feed back

Well, I guess it depends. With an M of 6-10 you still have some room to make plays. Also, your M with respect to the rest of the table is also important. In the later rounds when the blinds and antes get to be large, just about everyone's M will be low and many will feel the need to make a move.

What I believe Harrington was saying was that with higher M's you have a wider range of hands that you can speculate upon and more options in regards to betting and deception.

There are several people in the MTT tournaments forum that could answer this better than I can. Also if you search that forum you'll find several discussions regarding the pro's and con's of M.

i too instinctively think that an M of 6-8 is o.k. (especially at 10 handed). you can probably see a bunch of flops if you want...

BUT, if you get KK or QQ (kind of hands you're waiting for) and raise 3-4 big blind, then an ace or king might harm you and if one doesn't fall, you only have enough for one decent follow-up bet so if an A or K hits on the turn/river, you're pretty close to out... with an M>10, you can probably do this maneouver twice, not just once.

yes, i think you only have the $$$$ to play KK or QQ properly once (pre-flop and follow-up bet), so you have to win...

someone will probably rightly bring up "why wait for KK or QQ?". fair enough, but then you're going with 77-JJ where the original argument applies or going with AT+ or KJ+ where you probably stil want to raise pre-flop.

that was the problem with my thinking, you say well, you can probably see a bunch of flops but if you get good cards you probably want to raise and then bet again at least once if the flop is not dangerous.

lastly, an even lower M of 3-4 probably doesn't scare half the table so you can't pick up the blinds right away going all-in (haven't read harrington for awhile, or at least volume 2 so not sure if that's right - the concept is correct just not sure of the levels of M)

do people agree???

[benkahuna]

I don't really. I feel like you guys are misunderstanding the points in the book, even misremembering them.

I see M as a bit of a throttle factor and also a means to guide strategy.

If you read the book, Harrington is pretty clear that you have to change your strategy so that you don't even play drawing hands like small PPs, and suited connectors from early position. He says you need to fast play a bit more with marginal, dominated holdings such as ATo.

Once you get down to an M of 5, you have only one option, all in. Picking up that initial pot has significant benefits to your chipstack.

In the orange zone with an M of 6-10, you can start playing small pocket pairs in early position, but the play with them is all in.

The idea of being able to play flops and waiting for KK or QQ and somehow not getting all your money in before the flop with an M like 6 seems completely off base. You're not looking to play flops with Ms less than 20 at all. You want to take stabs at the pot to win quickly or get out and at the very lowest, be all in preflop every time with an M of 5.


I see M as an arbitrary means to throttle aggression based on desperation of going broke. You shift over from a chip accumulation mentality to a survival mentality as your focus. You also lose strategic options as your M gets lower. You don't have to use Dan's numbers, but I think not making the strategic adjustments he suggests is a big mistake.

I find using a rote M-based strategy is more useful against better competition. It gets me a little in trouble in daily tournaments online for 50 bucks, but was super helpful in a 300 buy in WSOP Circuit event late in the tourney near the bubble.

[ QUOTE ]

I see M as a bit of a throttle factor and also a means to guide strategy.

If you read the book, Harrington is pretty clear that you have to change your strategy so that you don't even play drawing hands like small PPs, and suited connectors from early position. He says you need to fast play a bit more with marginal, dominated holdings such as ATo.

You shift over from a chip accumulation mentality to a survival mentality as your focus. You also lose strategic options as your M gets lower. You don't have to use Dan's numbers, but I think not making the strategic adjustments he suggests is a big mistake.


[/ QUOTE ]

Having recently read and reread HOHE vol2, I think this is more in keeping with what wrote.

The one distiction I would add is that, as I read Harrington, when your M falls below 20 and above 6, the middle zones, is the time when suited connectors and low PP's become less playable..even in position. However, once your M drops to the Red and Dead zones, these hands take on additional premium and may be your best hope time to push when you have first-to-act vigor.

I respectfully concur that Harrington does not seem to be suggesting a player wait for traditional value premium hands (such as KK, QQ) when their M falls to critically low levels. In fact, he calls A8 OS as a viable push in such situations.

thank you for the help everyone

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I respectfully concur that Harrington does not seem to be suggesting a player wait for traditional value premium hands (such as KK, QQ) when their M falls to critically low levels. In fact, he calls A8 OS as a viable push in such situations.

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry, i was a little off there, although i did throw in pocket pairs and AT+ and KJ+ (not that far from A8o).

but at an M of 6-10 (say closer to 10), does he not want you to have enough to do a multi-stage betting strategy??? or does he want you to push all-in with A8o).

i think at an M of 4-5 then you definitely want to push all-in and be first to do so. i seem to remember harrington liking position (unopened late pot; no huge stacks in the way) and situation better than the hand value in pushing all-in. or was that more at an M of 2?

anyhow, tremendous book, haven't looked at vol 2 in awhile, but been reading vol 1 alot recently.

[benkahuna]

If you don't remember, I think rereading will do you well. I thought Dan was pretty clear, but it's complicated enough that misremembering isn' that hard.

[ QUOTE ]
I see M as a bit of a throttle factor and also a means to guide strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. While I left out any mention of a 'throttle factor', I was trying to be clear that it should be a guide for what range of strategies you should be using/thinking about...there are a lot of discussions about an over reliance on M and making fine distinctions between what your line is with an M of 5 vs an M of 6 over at the MTT forum.