Poker Tourney Update, Endgame Strategy pt. 2...

Endgame Strategy pt II

Yesterday, I spoke of the "playbook," being overly aggressive or picking off the sidelines with 10-15 yd passes while mixing it up with the long bomb, trying to go for higher risk, high reward plays while managing your game clock or grinding it out and running down the clock. Today, we'll discuss how to know which version of your playbook you should be using, and when...

To implement the discussed strategies, be sure to join the Online Poker Circuit.

Dan Harrington (Harrington on Hold em, vol. II: Endgame) discusses his concept on "inflection points," as mentioned yesterday. He goes on to state that two calculations, M and Q are essential to be mindful of at all times.

M is the ratio of your chip stack to the pot preflop and calculated by dividing your stack into (SB+BB+Ante). This gives you your "M" and serves as an indicator of how many times around you can survive if you played no hands. To demonstrate an example, your stack is 1500, blinds are 50/100, no ante. You'd divide your stack, 1500 into the total of the blinds and ante, 150. Doing the simple math, you can easily see that you have an M of ten. Q is simply an observation of your stack, relative to the average chip stack. Higher Q allows for more conservative play while lower Q requires one to open it up a bit more. We'll focus on M today primarily.

Note: The higher your M, the more likely you are (and correctly so) to want to grind it out and run down the clock in a more conservative fashion. The lower the M, the more you're wanting to pick off the sidelines for 10-15 yards, and or try the long bomb. Harrington describes his breakdown of M into different "zones."

Green Zone: M is 20 or more. Ideal place to be. Your entire playbook is available here. You can grind it out, calling and drawing, you can checkraise, limp, raise, reraise, fold. You're in the lead and can feel free to both protect it and take some chances here to further your lead. Your entire book of plays can be used as you smartly see fit.

Yellow Zone: M is between 10-20. Blinds are beginning to pressure you here, and time is beginning to work against you, considering the blind structure of a tourney does not remain flat. It rises over time. Here, you're needing to begin to open up your offense a bit, losing the ability to play conservative, grind it out ball. You're wanting to play hands that normal, conservative play wouldn't necessarily justify. Meaning, you're probably wanting to utilize hands that might not have been previously playable, such as KJo, AJo utg. However, smaller pocket pairs become a throw away hand in this zone.

Orange Zone: M is 6-10. You are totally absent the ability to come over top a raise and reraise here and gain a steal. Hand selection is important, but your timing is of more importance.

Red Zone: M is 1-5. You have 1 move... and only 1 move... "ALL IN" (read: the long bomb).

Dead Zone: M less than one. You're looking for simply a spot to move, along with a prayer or two to be answered.

Tomorrow we'll begin breaking down the zones and respective sections of the play books one by one.

CheckRayz Money added poker tourney on board the River Belle...

Apparently there was a misunderstanding/miscommunication regarding the money added poker tourney scheduled for tonight at River Belle. This tourney was supposed to be at 9pm EST, but got scheduled at 11pm EST and went unnoticed to me til it was pointed out by a CheckRayz member. My apologies for the over site. Unfortunately, this tourney will have to go down at 11pm as scheduled.



Poker Tournament Strategy
Endgame Strategy
Poker Tournaments