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“True M” versus Harrington’s M and Why Tournament Structure Matters

by Arnold

Snyder

(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XXVI #1, Spring 2007)

© Blackjack 🍉 Forum Online

2007

Critical Flaws in the Theory and Use of “M” in Poker Tournaments

In this article,

I will address critical 🍉 flaws in the concept of “M” as a measure of player viability in

poker tournaments. I will specifically be addressing 🍉 the concept of M as put forth by

Dan Harrington in Harrington on Hold’em II (HOH II). My book, The 🍉 Poker Tournament

Formula (PTF), has been criticized by some poker writers who contend that my strategies

for fast tournaments must 🍉 be wrong, since they violate strategies based on Harrington’s

M.

I will show that it is instead Harrington’s theory and advice 🍉 that are wrong. I will

explain in this article exactly where Harrington made his errors, why Harrington’s

strategies are incorrect 🍉 not only for fast tournaments, but for slow blind structures

as well, and why poker tournament structure, which Harrington ignores, 🍉 is the key

factor in devising optimal tournament strategies.

This article will also address a

common error in the thinking of 🍉 players who are using a combination of PTF and HOH

strategies in tournaments. Specifically, some of the players who are 🍉 using the

strategies from my book, and acknowledge that structure is a crucial factor in any

poker tournament, tell me 🍉 they still calculate M at the tables because they believe it

provides a “more accurate” assessment of a player’s current 🍉 chip stack status than the

simpler way I propose—gauging your current stack as a multiple of the big blind. But 🍉 M,

in fact, is a less accurate number, and this article will explain why.

There is a way

to calculate what 🍉 I call “True M,” that would provide the information that Harrington’s

false M is purported to provide, but I do 🍉 not believe there is any real strategic value

in calculating this number, and I will explain the reason for that 🍉 too.

The Basics of

Harrington’s M Strategy

Harrington uses a zone system to categorize a player’s current

chip position. In the “green 🍉 zone,” a player’s chip stack is very healthy and the

player can use a full range of poker skills. As 🍉 a player’s chip stack diminishes, the

player goes through the yellow zone, the orange zone, the red zone, and finally 🍉 the

dead zone. The zones are identified by a simple rating number Harrington calls

“M.”

What Is “M”?

In HOH II, on 🍉 page 125, Dan Harrington defines M as: “…the ratio of

your stack to the current total of blinds and antes.” 🍉 For example, if your chip stack

totals 3000, and the blinds are 100-200 (with no ante), then you find your 🍉 M by

dividing 3000 / 300 = 10.

On page 126, Harrington expounds on the meaning of M to a

tournament 🍉 player: “What M tells you is the number of rounds of the table that you can

survive before being blinded 🍉 off, assuming you play no pots in the meantime.” In other

words, Harrington describes M as a player’s survival indicator.

If 🍉 your M = 5, then

Harrington is saying you will survive for five more rounds of the table (five circuits

🍉 of the blinds) if you do not play a hand. At a 10-handed table, this would mean you

have about 🍉 50 hands until you would be blinded off. All of Harrington’s zone strategies

are based on this understanding of how 🍉 to calculate M, and what M means to your current

chances of tournament survival.

Amateur tournament players tend to tighten up 🍉 their

play as their chip stacks diminish. They tend to become overly protective of their

remaining chips. This is due 🍉 to the natural survival instinct of players. They know

that they cannot purchase more chips if they lose their whole 🍉 stack, so they try to

hold on to the precious few chips that are keeping them alive.

If they have read 🍉 a few

books on the subject of tournament play, they may also have been influenced by the

unfortunate writings of 🍉 Mason Malmuth and David Sklansky, who for many years have

promulgated the misguided theory that the fewer chips you have 🍉 in a tournament, the

more each chip is worth. (This fallacious notion has been addressed in other articles

in our 🍉 online Library, including: Chip Value in Poker Tournaments.)

But in HOH II,

Harrington explains that as your M diminishes, which is 🍉 to say as your stack size

becomes smaller in relation to the cost of the blinds and antes, “…the blinds 🍉 are

starting to catch you, so you have to loosen your play… you have to start making moves

with hands 🍉 weaker than those a conservative player would elect to play.” I agree with

Harrington on this point, and I also 🍉 concur with his explanation of why looser play is

correct as a player’s chip stack gets shorter: “Another way of 🍉 looking at M is to see

it as a measure of just how likely you are to get a better 🍉 hand in a better situation,

with a reasonable amount of money left.” (Italics his.)

In other words, Harrington

devised his looser 🍉 pot-entering strategy, which begins when your M falls below 20, and

goes through four zones as it continues to shrink, 🍉 based on the likelihood of your

being dealt better cards to make chips with than your present starting hand. For

🍉 example, with an M of 15 (yellow zone according to Harrington), if a player is dealt an

8-3 offsuit in 🍉 early position (a pretty awful starting hand by anyone’s definition),

Harrington’s yellow zone strategy would have the player fold this 🍉 hand preflop because

of the likelihood that he will be dealt a better hand to play while he still has 🍉 a

reasonable amount of money left.

By contrast, if the player is dealt an ace-ten offsuit

in early position, Harrington’s yellow 🍉 zone strategy would advise the player to enter

the pot with a raise. This play is not advised in Harrington’s 🍉 green zone strategy

(with an M > 20) because he considers ace-ten offsuit to be too weak of a hand 🍉 to play

from early position, since your bigger chip stack means you will be likely to catch a

better pot-entering 🍉 opportunity if you wait. The desperation of your reduced chip stack

in the yellow zone, however, has made it necessary 🍉 for you to take a risk with this

hand because with the number of hands remaining before you will be 🍉 blinded off, you are

unlikely “…to get a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of

money 🍉 left.”

Again, I fully agree with the logic of loosening starting hand

requirements as a player’s chip stack gets short. In 🍉 fact, the strategies in The Poker

Tournament Formula are based in part (but not in whole) on the same logic.

But 🍉 despite

the similarity of some of the logic behind our strategies, there are big differences

between our specific strategies for 🍉 any specific size of chip stack. For starters, my

strategy for entering a pot with what I categorize as a 🍉 “competitive stack” (a stack

size more or less comparable to Harrington’s “green zone”) is far looser and more

aggressive than 🍉 his. And my short-stack strategies are downright maniacal compared to

Harrington’s strategies for his yellow, orange, and red zones.

There are 🍉 two major

reasons why our strategies are so different, even though we agree on the logic that

looser play is 🍉 required as stacks get shorter. Again, the first is a fundamental

difference in our overriding tournament theory, which I will 🍉 deal with later in this

article. The second reason, which I will deal with now, is a serious flaw in

🍉 Harrington’s method of calculating and interpreting M. Again, what Harrington

specifically assumes, as per HOH II, is that: “What M 🍉 tells you is the number of rounds

of the table that you can survive before being blinded off, assuming you 🍉 play no pots

in the meantime.”

But that’s simply not correct. The only way M, as defined by

Harrington, could indicate 🍉 the number of rounds a player could survive is by ignoring

the tournament structure.

Why Tournament Structure Matters in Devising Optimal

🍉 Strategy

Let’s look at some sample poker tournaments to show how structure matters, and

how it affects the underlying meaning of 🍉 M, or “the number of rounds of the table that

you can survive before being blinded off, assuming you play 🍉 no pots in the meantime.”

Let’s say the blinds are 50-100, and you have 3000 in chips. What is your 🍉 M, according

to Harrington?

M = 3000 / 150 = 20

So, according to the explanation of M provided in

HOH II, 🍉 you could survive 20 more rounds of the table before being blinded off,

assuming you play no pots in the 🍉 meantime. This is not correct, however, because the

actual number of rounds you can survive before being blinded off is 🍉 entirely dependent

on the tournament’s blind structure.

For example, what if this tournament has 60-minute

blind levels? Would you survive 20 🍉 rounds with the blinds at 50-100 if you entered no

pots? No way. Assuming this is a ten-handed table, you 🍉 would go through the blinds

about once every twenty minutes, which is to say, you would only play three rounds 🍉 at

this 50-100 level. Then the blinds would go up.

If we use the blind structure from the

WSOP Circuit events 🍉 recently played at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, after 60 minutes

the blinds would go from 50-100 to 100-200, then 🍉 to 100-200 with a 25 ante 60 minutes

after that. What is the actual number of rounds you would survive 🍉 without entering a

pot in this tournament from this point? Assuming you go through the blinds at each

level three 🍉 times,

3 x 150 = 450

3 x 300 = 900

3 x 550 = 1650

Add up the blind costs:

450 + 900 🍉 + 1650 = 3000.

That’s a total of only 9 rounds.

This measure of the true

“…number of rounds of the table 🍉 that you can survive before being blinded off, assuming

you play no pots in the meantime,” is crucial in evaluating 🍉 your likelihood of getting

“…a better hand in a better situation, with a reasonable amount of money left,” and it

🍉 is entirely dependent on this tournament’s blind structure. For the rest of this

article, I will refer to this more 🍉 accurate structure-based measure as “True M.” True M

for this real-world tournament would indicate to the player that his survival 🍉 time was

less than half that predicted by Harrington’s miscalculation of M.

True M in Fast Poker

Tournaments

To really drill home 🍉 the flaw in M—as Harrington defines it—let’s look at a

fast tournament structure. Let’s assume the exact same 3000 in 🍉 chips, and the exact

same 50-100 blind level, but with the 20-minute blind levels we find in many small

buy-in 🍉 tourneys. With this blind structure, the blinds will be one level higher each

time we go through them. How many 🍉 rounds of play will our 3000 in chips survive,

assuming we play no pots? (Again, I’ll use the Caesars WSOP 🍉 levels, as above, changing

only the blind length.)

150 + 300 + 550 + 1100 (4 rounds) = 1950

The next round 🍉 the

blinds are 300-600 with a 75 ante, so the cost of a ten-handed round is 1650, and we

only 🍉 have 1050 remaining. That means that with this faster tournament structure, our

True M at the start of that 50-100 🍉 blind level is actually about 4.6, a very far cry

from the 20 that Harrington would estimate, and quite far 🍉 from the 9 rounds we would

survive in the 60-minute structure described above.

And, in a small buy-in tournament

with 15-minute 🍉 blind levels—and these fast tournaments are very common in poker rooms

today—this same 3000 chip position starting at this same 🍉 blind level would indicate a

True M of only 3.9.

True M in Slow Poker Tournaments

But what if you were playing 🍉 in

theR$10K main event of the WSOP, where the blind levels last 100 minutes? In this

tournament, if you were 🍉 at the 50-100 blind level with 3000 in chips, your True M would

be 11.4. (As a matter of fact, 🍉 it has only been in recent years that the blind levels

of the main event of the WSOP have been 🍉 reduced from their traditional 2-hour length.

With 2-hour blind levels, as Harrington would have played throughout most of the years

🍉 he has played the main event, his True M starting with this chip position would be

12.6.)

Unfortunately, that’s still nowhere 🍉 near the 20 rounds Harrington’s M gives

you.

True M Adjusts for Tournament Structure

Note that in each of these tournaments, 20

🍉 M means something very different as a survival indicator. True M shows that the

survival equivalent of 3000 in chips 🍉 at the same blind level can range from 3.9 rounds

(39 hands) to 12.6 (126 hands), depending solely on the 🍉 length of the

blinds.

Furthermore, even within the same blind level of the same tournament, True M

can have different values, 🍉 depending on how deep you are into that blind level. For

example, what if you have 3000 in chips but 🍉 instead of being at the very start of that

50-100 blind level (assuming 60-minute levels), you are somewhere in the 🍉 middle of it,

so that although the blinds are currently 50-100, the blinds will go up to the 100-200

level 🍉 before you go through them three more times? Does this change your True M?

It

most certainly does. That True M 🍉 of 9 in this tournament, as demonstrated above, only

pertains to your chip position at the 50-100 blind level if 🍉 you will be going through

those 50-100 blinds three times before the next level. If you’ve already gone through

those 🍉 blinds at that level one or more times, then your True M will not be 9, but will

range from 🍉 6.4 to 8.1, depending on how deep into the 50-100 blind level you are.

Most

important, if you are under the 🍉 mistaken impression that at any point in the 50-100

blind level in any of the tournaments described above, 3000 in 🍉 chips is sufficient to

go through 20 rounds of play (200 hands), you are way off the mark. What Harrington

🍉 says “M tells you,” is not at all what M tells you. If you actually stopped and

calculated True M, 🍉 as defined above, then True M would tell you what Harrington’s M

purports to tell you.

And if it really is 🍉 important for you to know how many times you

can go through the blinds before you are blinded off, then 🍉 why not at least figure out

the number accurately? M, as described in Harrington’s book, is simply woefully

inadequate at 🍉 performing this function.

If Harrington had actually realized that his M

was not an accurate survival indicator, and he had stopped 🍉 and calculated True M for a

variety of tournaments, would he still be advising you to employ the same starting 🍉 hand

standards and playing strategies at a True M of 3.9 (with 39 hands before blind-off)

that you would be 🍉 employing at a True M of 12.6 (with 126 hands before blind-off)?

If

he believes that a player with 20 M 🍉 has 20 rounds of play to wait for a good hand

before he is blinded off (and again, 20 rounds 🍉 at a ten-player table would be 200

hands), then his assessment of your likelihood of getting “…a better hand in 🍉 a better

situation, with a reasonable amount of money left,” would be quite different than if he

realized that his 🍉 True M was 9 (90 hands remaining till blind-off), or in a faster

blind structure, as low as 3.9 (only 🍉 39 hands remaining until blind-off).

Those

radically different blind-off times would drastically alter the frequencies of

occurrence of the premium starting 🍉 hands, and aren’t the likelihood of getting those

hands what his M theory and strategy are based on?

A Blackjack Analogy

For 🍉 blackjack

players—and I know a lot of my readers come from the world of blackjack card

counting—Harrington’s M might best 🍉 be compared to the “running count.” If I am using a

traditional balanced card counting system at a casino blackjack 🍉 table, and I make my

playing and betting decisions according to my running count, I will often be playing

incorrectly, 🍉 because the structure of the game—the number of decks in play and the

number of cards that have already been 🍉 dealt since the last shuffle—must be taken into

account in order for me to adjust my running count to a 🍉 “true” count.

A +6 running

count in a single-deck game means something entirely different from a +6 running count

in a 🍉 six-deck shoe game. And even within the same game, a +6 running count at the

beginning of the deck or 🍉 shoe means something different from a +6 running count toward

the end of the deck or shoe.

Professional blackjack players adjust 🍉 their running count

to the true count to estimate their advantage accurately and make their strategy

decisions accordingly. The unadjusted 🍉 running count cannot do this with any accuracy.

Harrington’s M could be considered a kind of Running M, which must 🍉 be adjusted to a

True M in order for it to have any validity as a survival gauge.

When Harrington’s

Running 🍉 M Is Occasionally Correct

Harrington’s Running M can “accidentally” become

correct without a True M adjustment when a player is very 🍉 short-stacked in a tournament

with lengthy blind levels. For example, if a player has an M of 4 or 5 🍉 in a tournament

with 2-hour blind levels, then in the early rounds of that blind level, since he could

expect 🍉 to go through the same blind costs 4 or 5 times, Harrington’s unadjusted M would

be the same as True 🍉 M.

This might also occur when the game is short-handed, since

players will be going through the blinds more frequently. (This 🍉 same thing happens in

blackjack games where the running count equals the true count at specific points in the

deal. 🍉 For example, if a blackjack player is using a count-per-deck adjustment in a

six-deck game, then when the dealer is 🍉 down to the last deck in play, the running count

will equal the true count.)

In rare situations like these, where 🍉 Running M equals True

M, Harrington’s “red zone” strategies may be correct—not because Harrington was correct

in his application of 🍉 M, but because of the tournament structure and the player’s poor

chip position at that point.

In tournaments with 60-minute blind 🍉 levels, this type of

“Running M = True M” situation could only occur at a full table when a player’s 🍉 M is 3

or less. And in fast tournaments with 15 or 20-minute blind levels, Harrington’s M

could only equal 🍉 True M when a player’s M = 1 or less.

Harrington’s yellow and orange

zone strategies, however, will always be pretty 🍉 worthless, even in the slowest

tournaments, because there are no tournaments with blind levels that last long enough

to require 🍉 no True M adjustments.

Why Harrington’s Strategies Can’t Be Said to Adjust

Automatically for True M

Some Harrington supporters may wish to 🍉 make a case that Dan

Harrington made some kind of automatic adjustment for approximate True M in devising

his yellow 🍉 and orange zone strategies. But in HOH II, he clearly states that M tells

you how many rounds of the 🍉 table you will survive—period.

In order to select which

hands a player should play in these zones, based on the likelihood 🍉 of better hands

occurring while the player still has a reasonable chip stack, it was necessary for

Harrington to specify 🍉 some number of rounds in order to develop a table of the

frequencies of occurrence of the starting hands. His 🍉 book tells us that he assumes an M

of 20 simply means 20 rounds remaining—which we know is wrong for 🍉 all real-world

tournaments.

But for those who wish to make a case that Harrington made some kind of a

True M 🍉 adjustment that he elected not to inform us about, my answer is that it’s

impossible that whatever adjustment he used 🍉 would be even close to accurate for all

tournaments and blind structures. If, for example, he assumed 20 M meant 🍉 a True M of

12, and he developed his starting-hand frequency charts with this assumption, then his

strategies would be 🍉 fairly accurate for the slowest blind structures we find in major

events. But they would still be very wrong for 🍉 the faster blind structures we find in

events with smaller buy-ins and in most online tournaments.

In HOH II, he does 🍉 provide

quite a few sample hands from online tournaments, with no mention whatsoever of the

blind structures of these events, 🍉 but 15-minute blind levels are less common online

than 5-, 8-, and 12-minute blind levels. Thus, we are forced to 🍉 believe that what Mason

Malmuth claims is true: that Harrington considers his strategies correct for

tournaments of all speeds. So 🍉 it is doubtful that he made any True M adjustments, even

for slower tournament structures. Simply put, Harrington is oblivious 🍉 to the true

mathematics of M.

Simplifying True M for Real-Life Tournament Strategy

If all poker

tournaments had the same blind structure, 🍉 then we could just memorize chart data that

would indicate True M with any chip stack at any point in 🍉 any blind level.

Unfortunately, there are almost as many blind structures as there are

tournaments.

There are ways, however, that Harrington’s 🍉 Running M could be adjusted to

an approximate True M without literally figuring out the exact cost of each blind 🍉 level

at every point in the tournament. With 90-minute blind levels, after dividing your chip

stack by the cost of 🍉 a round, simply divide your Running M by two, and you’ll have a

reasonable approximation of your True M.

With 60-minute 🍉 blind levels, take about 40% of

the Running M. With 30-minute blind levels, divide the Running M by three. And 🍉 with 15-

or 20-minute blind levels, divide the Running M by five. These will be far from perfect

adjustments, but 🍉 they will be much closer to reality than Harrington’s unadjusted

Running M numbers.

Do Tournament Players Need to Know Their “True 🍉 M”?

Am I suggesting

that poker tournament players should start estimating their True M, instead of the

Running M that Harrington 🍉 proposes? No, because I disagree with Harrington’s emphasis

on survival and basing so much of your play on your cards. 🍉 I just want to make it clear

that M, as defined and described by Harrington in HOH II, is wrong, 🍉 a bad measure of

what it purports and aims to measure. It is based on an error in logic, in 🍉 which a

crucial factor in the formula—tournament structure—is ignored (the same error that

David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth have made 🍉 continually in their writings and analyses

of tournaments.)

Although it would be possible for a player to correct Harrington’s

mistake by 🍉 estimating his True M at any point in a tournament, I don’t advise it.

Admittedly, it’s a pain in the 🍉 ass trying to calculate True M exactly, not something

most players could do quickly and easily at the tables. But 🍉 that’s not the reason I

think True M should be ignored.

The reason is related to the overarching difference

between Harrington’s 🍉 strategies and mine, which I mentioned at the beginning of this

article. That is: It’s a grave error for tournament 🍉 players to focus on how long they

can survive if they just sit and wait for premium cards. That’s not 🍉 what tournaments

are about. It’s a matter of perspective. When you look at your stack size, you

shouldn’t be thinking, 🍉 “How long can I survive?” but, “How much of a threat do I pose

to my opponents?”

The whole concept of 🍉 M is geared to the player who is tight and

conservative, waiting for premium hands (or premium enough at that 🍉 point). Harrington’s

strategy is overly focused on cards as the primary pot entering factor, as opposed to

entering pots based 🍉 predominately (or purely) on position, chip stack, and

opponent(s).

In The Poker Tournament Formula, I suggest that players assess their chip

🍉 position by considering their chip stacks as a simple multiple of the current big

blind. If you have 3000 in 🍉 chips, and the big blind is 100, then you have 30 big

blinds. This number, 30, tells you nothing about 🍉 how many rounds you can survive if you

don’t enter any pots. But frankly, that doesn’t matter. What matters in 🍉 a tournament is

that you have sufficient chips to employ your full range of skills, and—just as

important—that you have 🍉 sufficient chips to threaten your opponents with a raise, and

an all-in raise if that is what you need for 🍉 the threat to be successful to win you the

pot.

Your ability to to be a threat is directly related to 🍉 the health of your chip

stack in relation to the current betting level, which is most strongly influenced by

the 🍉 size of the blinds. In my PTF strategy, tournaments are not so much about survival

as they are about stealing 🍉 pots. If you’re going to depend on surviving until you get

premium cards to get you to the final table, 🍉 you’re going to see very few final tables.

You must outplay your opponents with the cards you are dealt, not 🍉 wait and hope for

cards that are superior to theirs.

I’m not suggesting that you ignore the size of the

preflop 🍉 pot and focus all of your attention on the size of the big blind. You should

always total the chips 🍉 in the pot preflop, but not because you want to know how long

you can survive if you sit there 🍉 waiting for your miracle cards. You simply need to

know the size of the preflop pot so you can make 🍉 your betting and playing decisions,

both pre- and post-flop, based on all of the factors in the current hand.

What other

🍉 players, if any have entered the pot? Is this a pot you can steal if you don’t have a

viable 🍉 hand? Is this pot worth the risk of an attempted steal? If you have a drawing

hand, do you have 🍉 the odds to call, or are you giving an opponent the odds to call? Are

any of your opponent(s) pot-committed? 🍉 Do you have sufficient chips to play a

speculative hand for this pot? There are dozens of reasons why you 🍉 need to know the

size of a pot you are considering getting involved in, but M is not a factor 🍉 in any of

these decisions.

So, again, although you will always be totaling the chips in the pot

in order to 🍉 make betting and playing decisions, sitting there and estimating your

blind-off time by dividing your chip stack by the total 🍉 chips in the preflop pot is an

exercise in futility. It has absolutely nothing to do with your actual chances 🍉 of

survival. You shouldn’t even be thinking in terms of survival, but of

domination.

Harrington on Hold’em II versus The Poker 🍉 Tournament Formula: A Sample

Situation

Let’s say the blinds are 100-200, and you have 4000 in chips. Harrington

would have you 🍉 thinking that your M is 13 (yellow zone), and he advises: “…you have to

switch to smallball moves: get in, 🍉 win the pot, but get out when you encounter

resistance.” (HOH II, p. 136)

In The Poker Tournament Formula basic strategy 🍉 for fast

tournaments (PTF p. 158), I categorize this chip stack equal to 20 big blinds as “very

short,” and 🍉 my advice is: “…you must face the fact that you are not all that far from

the exit door. But 🍉 you still have enough chips to scare any player who does not have a

really big chip stack and/or a 🍉 really strong hand. Two things are important when you

are this short on chips. One is that unless you have 🍉 an all-in raising hand as defined

below, do not enter any pot unless you are the first in. And second, 🍉 any bet when you

are this short will always be all-in.”

The fact is, you don’t have enough chips for

“smallball” 🍉 when you’re this short on chips in a fast tournament, and one of the most

profitable moves you can make 🍉 is picking on Harrington-type players who think it’s time

for smallball.

Harrington sees this yellow zone player as still having 13 🍉 rounds of

play (130 hands, which is a big overestimation resulting from his failure to adjust to

True M) to 🍉 look for a pretty decent hand to get involved with. My thinking in a fast

tournament, by contrast, would be: 🍉 “The blinds are now 100-200. By the time they get

around to me fifteen minutes from now, they will be 🍉 200-400. If I don’t make a move

before the blinds get around to me, and I have to go through 🍉 those blinds, my 4000 will

become 3400, and the chip position I’m in right now, which is having a stack 🍉 equal to

20 times the big blind, will be reduced to a stack of only 8.5 times the big blind.

🍉 Right now, my chip stack is scary. Ten to fifteen minutes from now (in 7-8 hands), any

legitimate hand will 🍉 call me down.”

So, my advice to players this short on chips in a

fast tournament is to raise all-in with 🍉 any two cards from any late position seat in an

unopened pot. My raising hands from earlier positions include all 🍉 pairs higher than 66,

and pretty much any two high cards. And my advice with these hands is to raise 🍉 or

reraise all-in, including calling any all-ins. You need a double-up so badly here that

you simply must take big 🍉 risks. As per The Poker Tournament Formula (p. 159): “When

you’re this short on chips you must take risks, because 🍉 the risk of tournament death is

greater if you don’t play than if you do.”

There is also a side effect 🍉 of using a loose

aggressive strategy when you have enough chips to hurt your opponents, and that is that

you 🍉 build an image of a player who is not to be messed with, and that is always the

preferred image 🍉 to have in any no-limit hold’em tournament. But while Harrington sees

this player surviving for another 13 rounds of play, 🍉 the reality is that he will

survive fewer than 4 more rounds in a fast tournament, and within two rounds 🍉 he will be

so short-stacked that he will be unable to scare anybody out of a pot, and even a

🍉 double-up will not get him anywhere near a competitive chip stack.

The Good News for

Poker Tournament Players

The good news for 🍉 poker tournament players is that

Harrington’s books have become so popular, and his M theory so widely accepted as valid

🍉 by many players and “experts” alike, that today’s NLH tournaments are overrun with his

disciples playing the same tight, conservative 🍉 style through the early green zone blind

levels, then predictably entering pots with more marginal hands as their M

diminishes—which 🍉 their early tight play almost always guarantees. And, though many of

the top players know that looser, more aggressive play 🍉 is what’s getting them to the

final tables, I doubt that Harrington’s misguided advice will be abandoned by the

masses 🍉 any time soon.

In a recent issue of Card Player magazine (March 28, 2007),

columnist Steve Zolotow reviewed The Poker Tournament 🍉 Formula, stating: “Snyder

originates a complicated formula for determining the speed of a tournament, which he

calls the patience factor. 🍉 Dan Harrington’s discussion of M and my columns on CPR cover

this same material, but much more accurately. Your strategy 🍉 should be based not upon

the speed of the tournament as a whole, but on your current chip position in 🍉 relation

to current blinds. If your M (the number of rounds you can survive without playing a

hand) is 20, 🍉 you should base your strategy primarily on that fact. Whether the blinds

will double and reduce your M to 10 🍉 in 15 minutes or four hours should not have much

influence on your strategic decisions.”

Zolotow’s “CPR” articles were simply a 🍉 couple

of columns he wrote last year in which he did nothing but explain Harrington’s M

theory, as if it 🍉 were 100% correct. He added nothing to the theory of M, and is clearly

as ignorant of the math as 🍉 Harrington is.

So money-making opportunities in poker

tournaments continue to abound.

In any case, I want to thank SlackerInc for posting a

🍉 question on our poker discussion forum, in which he pointed out many of the key

differences between Harrington’s short-stack strategies 🍉 and those in The Poker

Tournament Formula. He wanted to know why our pot-entering strategies were so far

apart.

The answer 🍉 is that the strategies in my book are specifically identified as

strategies for fast tournaments of a specific speed, so 🍉 my assumptions, based on a

player’s current chip stack, would usually be that the player is about five times more

🍉 desperate than Harrington would see him (his Running M of 20 being roughly equivalent

to my True M of about 🍉 4). ♠

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