Posts Tagged ‘Score’

Tournament Strategy – Understanding M Zones

The concept in Harrington’s poker tournament strategy.

Understanding the concept of M will allow you to understand the basic concept of chip count and playing strategy.

The Zone System was first introduced by Dan Harrington in his highly acclaimed book Harrington on Hold’em, Volume II: The Endgame. The system divides a poker tournament into five different zones based on a player’s stack size as compared to the blinds and antes. Each zone will affect your play and correct strategy will vary dramatically as a result. The ratio of your stack compared to the blinds and antes is referred to as your “M.”

What is ‘M’

‘M’ is the ratio of the blinds (and antes if applicable) to your current chip stack. At a table of 9 or 10 players you add the 2 blinds together (big and small) and divide your chips by this number to give you an ‘M’ number. For example if you have 2000 chips and the total blinds are equal to 400 then your ‘M’ is 5.

What Does It Mean?

The number tells you is how many more times around the table you can survive without being blinded out. In the above example, assuming you played no hands, you can last for 5 rounds.

Effective ‘M”

Te ‘M” assumes a full table of 9 to 10 players. When there are less players, the blinds will come around faster – and so your M must be adjusted. Dividing your current M by number of players at the table is know as Effective M’. For example, you have 4000 chips with 4 players left and the blinds total 400, your M now equals 4000/400 = 10, since only one half of a full table are playing you divide by 2 for an Effective M of 5.

Once You Know Your M You Can Adjust Your Strategy

Knowing your M score helps you make tournament strategy adjustments based on the score. This is where Dan Harrington’s Poker Zone Theory comes in. Your ‘M’ level determines which ‘zone’ you are in and so what your current strategy should be. There are 5 zones, from the highest to the lowest these are.

Green Zone

When your M is above 20 you have many poker tournament strategy options available. You can raise, re-raise and still have chips left if you lose a hand.

Yellow Zone

M is between 10 and 20. You should loosen up a bit to stop the blinds eating away at your stack. Small pairs and suited connectors are less desirable now.

Orange Zone

M is now between 6 and 10. Your stack is dwindling so you must play aggressively to stay alive.

Red Zone

M is 5 or less. Here you have lost all flexibility if you play a hand it should be all-in, try to be first into a pot to maximize the chance opponents will fold.

Dead Zone

M of less than one: Any high cards are good enough for an all-in move, but expect to be called!

Play in MiniFTOPS this March

MiniFTOPS
Play in MiniFTOPS this March for your chance to turn a small buy-in into a huge score. Get in on the action of the 27 FTOPS XV events at a fraction of the price and win your share of more than $6 million in guaranteed prize money.

27 Events – 1/10th of the buy-in!

Starting on March 10th, MiniFTOPS features the same events as FTOPS, but all at 1/10th of the buy-in. Series highlights include the MiniFTOPS Two-Day Event, featuring a $250 + $16 buy-in and at least $600K guaranteed, and the MiniFTOPS Main Event, with a $50 + $5 buy-in and $800K in guaranteed prize money.

MiniFTOPS events feature large starting fields and great tournament structures, giving you a lot of play for a little money. Buy in to any MiniFTOPS event directly now, or satellite your way in for as little as $0.50 or 50 Full Tilt Points starting on February 21st. See the full MiniFTOPS Schedule for more details.

MiniFTOPS Prizes

There is more than money on the line when you play in a MiniFTOPS event. All players who make the final table of a MiniFTOPS event will receive a limited-edition MiniFTOPS jacket. Winners from each event will receive the jacket and a silver MiniFTOPS jersey to go along with their 1st place prize money.

Finish 1st on the MiniFTOPS Leaderboard and receive a special prize package which includes entry to every FTOPS XVI event (except the Two-Day Event). The prize package is expected to be worth approximately $8,500 in tournament entries.

MiniFTOPS Two-Day Event
The inaugural MiniFTOPS Two-Day Event in FTOPS XII was taken down by crouts, for more than $120K. Since then, mordovorotishe and hidden1s have claimed the top prize.

Featuring a $250 + $16 buy-in and $600K in guaranteed prize money, the MiniFTOPS Two-Day Event begins on Saturday, March 20th at 13:00 ET (18:00 GMT).

The end of day one comes at the conclusion of level 17; if the money has not been reached by the end of level 17, play will continue until the money bubble has burst. Day two begins the next day at 13:00 ET (18:00 GMT). This tournament features 30 minute blind levels, and players begin with 5,000 starting chips.

Register Now
Follow these steps to register for any MiniFTOPS event:

1.If you haven’t done so already, download Full Tilt Poker and install the game software on your computer.
2.Create an account.
3.Open the game software and click on the Lobby menu, then select Choose Lobby View > Standard View.
4.In the browse area, click on Tournament and then FTOPS.
5.Find the MiniFTOPS event you’d like to play in, click the Register Now button and get ready to play for your share of the prize money.

Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan Goes Deep in Sunday Brawl

As usual PokerStars led the way with a Sunday Million that drew 9,031 to create a prize pool of $1.8 million.

U.S. online player palurdo annihilated the field and, after making a heads-up deal with golferen50, took down the tournament for a $248,791 score.

Steve “Ilini213” Barshak, who won a $50k guaranteed on PokerStars for $18,700 in December, made an even bigger score yesterday when he outlasted all 1,013 entries in the PokerStars Sunday 500 to win $88,536.

Meanwhile, on Full-Tilt there was a small overlay in the Sunday $750k Guaranteed, much to the delight of the 3,542 players that entered. Online player pokerNIRVana5 took the title for $111,037.

Full-Tilt’s other major tournament – The Sunday Brawl – saw an established poker pro make the final table.

Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan finished in fourth place to earn $42,121. Ryan has an impressive tournament record that includes big live scores at EPT Dortmund and EPT Copenhagen in 2008.

Ryan has also claimed victories in most of the Sunday majors including the PokerStars Sunday Million and the Full-Tilt $750k Guaranteed. He’ll have to wait another day to add the Sunday Brawl to that list, however, as DedoDeGorila was the ultimate winner yesterday.

Finally, in the UB $200k Guaranteed, Jason “JP OSU” Potter finished runner up to YANKEE47. YANKEE officially earned $44,920 while Potter took $26,900, although there was some sort of chop.

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