Book Review
Harrington gives tournament advice
By David Schecter

Readers of this column know that in past editions I have reviewed books dealing with poker tells, general strategy and mistakes we often find ourselves making at the tables. For this edition of The Cardroom I am going to shift focus a bit and spend time exclusively on no-limit Hold’em tournament play.

Here, and again in the next two editions, I am going to review what amounts to competing tournament strategies for you to consider. You may not be aware of it, but there is an ongoing battle in the poker literature right now over optimum strategy in no-limit tournaments and this fight is taking place in poker rooms big and small, on message boards and in poker blogs across the Internet.

In one corner is the reigning champ of tournament strategy texts: Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie’s “Harrington on Hold’em;” (Two Plus Two Publishing) an audacious and important series of three books that has come to be known as a bible for serious players. In the other corner is the mostly unknown, but highly readable “The Poker Tournament Formula” by Arnold Snyder. This is a compact book that, along with its accompanying website, represents a real challenge to the Harrington method, simply because it focuses strictly on the plethora of small buy-in, quick tournaments that are all the rage right now throughout the country.

Snyder’s basic argument is that while Harrington’s ideas may be perfectly fine in the large buy-in, incredibly slow tournaments that many pros play in, that same strategy is simply inappropriate for the daily tournaments offered at our local casinos. Snyder argues that this is no mere apples-to-oranges difference, but that if students of the game do not understand the fundamental tournament structure differences in these more common tournaments they are making a serious mistake.

Having read the Harrington three-volume series and the Snyder book, as well, I felt both strategies held merit and were worth a review. In two columns I will review the “Harrington on Hold’em” concepts and then, in the third installation, review the Snyder book and show how they contrast with one another. These are, without a doubt, the most important, influential books I have read in the last two years.

Are you really serious about improving your game? I mean really serious, as this book series will test you like no other. If you are tired of burning through your money in tournaments and ready to become a more technical player, then you are ready for the workload that this series requires. And when I say workload, I am not joking. The structure of the Harrington series is based on the argument that “practice makes perfect,” so the books are designed with a ton of philosophical discussions about tournament play, and then each key concept is reiterated in an end-of-chapter series of questions on what should be done in a number of scenarios. This is not light reading, but the rewards are well worth it. With that caveat aside, let’s take a look at the books. We’ll take a look at Volume I in this issue and Volume II next time. Volume III is simply a larger workbook meant to help you solidify the concepts learned in the first two.

In Volume I, called “Strategic Play,” Harrington and Robertie begin with a nice overview of no-limit Hold’em and discuss the role that luck constantly plays in this sometimes vicious game. They see luck as a way to show that there are some things we can control and some things we cannot. A key line from Part 1 that I think is worth repeating is their important contention that: “The most profitable style to play at any moment is usually the opposite of the style of the other players at the table.” This is a hard rule to follow sometimes, because we are probably all guilty of getting caught up in the mood and rhythm of a given game.

Part II goes over the various playing styles we are likely to encounter and the “conservative.” “aggressive,” “super aggressive” labels the authors use will be familiar to those who have read other books on this topic. What is new and important here is the time given to what they term the “Art of Defense.” The “Hammer” and “Rope-a-Dope” defense strategies are pretty self-explanatory, but nice examples are given here to show when it might be best to bring in the heavy artillery and when it might be appropriate to play more cautiously.

Part II ends with a series of eight practice questions where the authors walk you though your position at the table, the betting amounts, blinds, how many chips each player has, and what your options might be given the specific hand you are dealt. These practice pages, eighteen from this section alone, are absolutely invaluable and should not be skipped over. The visual representation of each hand in this series is excellent and the publisher should be applauded for making the practice questions so easy to follow. In so many other poker books it is just plain hard to visualize the hands that are described.

Part III begins with a short overview on poker tells that you may witness at the table and then moves to a discussion on betting patterns that is quite useful. The authors want us to get in the habit of constantly asking ourselves the following four questions about each player at our table: (1) How many hands do they play? (2) What hands do they show down? (3) Are they callers or raisers? and (4) How do they respond when someone comes over the top?

This is a lot of work, but it will pay dividends if we can train ourselves to do it more frequently. I have been guilty of getting involved in too much small talk at the table and not really paying attention to the play unless a really big pot starts to develop. Lately, I am trying to follow the advice here and really keep mental notes on all of the players, all of the time.

At the end of this section we’re asked to turn the camera on ourselves and evaluate what a keen observer would think of our own play at any given time in the tournament. The work problems at the end of this chapter are particularly helpful, especially one showing the high risk you are taking in not paying attention to other players and the characteristics they have been exhibiting. In that example you are dealt K-K in late position with a raise and call coming in before action gets around to you. What should be done here if you have already noticed the two players in the pot are pros and you are one of the amateurs at the table? Harrington walks us through nearly every possible decision you could make here, explains why a re-raise is most appropriate, and how we should play the remainder of the hand as it develops. We eventually “win” the hand, which may not be too surprising, but when you’re done reading this example and the dozens like it throughout the book you’ll never look at your pocket pair the same way again. This is good stuff.

The standard material on pot odds is found in the next part of “Strategic Play,” but I think the best part of this section ­comes at the end, after the authors have spent several pages talking us through a difficult all-in decision in the fictitious second day of a major tournament. Calculating the pot odds is so critical in the given scenario that you would want to spend the time to go through the figures in your mind as described, but they return to the theme of luck here as well, which I found somewhat surprising, yet refreshing.

The point is clear—go through the pot odds process for all major decisions, but realize you are simply guesstimating and other factors will come into play. They conclude: “Remember this. In order to reach the final table of a big tournament, it’s not enough to get paid off on your monster hands. At least once or twice during the event, you’re going to have to come back from the dead. You’re goin be all-in against someone who has you beat, and you’re going to catch a card on fourth or fifth street that miraculously keeps you alive.” Here’s hoping we’ve at least considered the pot odds first, as Harrington suggests, to see if we could push that miracle along!

Preflop betting is the theme of the next section and they expand on how to handle a raise behind you. Part Six delves into postflop, covering continuation bets as well as probe bets (where the leader of the hand before the flop declines to bet on the flop, so you are inclined to lead out with something yourself). Harrington is a fan of these smaller bets to help us find out where we stand and he suggests they can be done on any street. Some thoughtful work problems follow at the end of the chapter to help you understand each of these concepts in more detail.

The concluding chapter ends with a discussion of play for fourth and fifth street that is some of the best I’ve ever read on the topic. The examples given are clear and easy to follow and I often found myself shaking my head during this section and thinking: “I’ve seen that play;” or “I need to try that once in a while.” What I found particularly helpful was the fact that the authors state many times that there is no “correct” style of play for many situations. Poker is a game of give and take, directional changes, and simply playing the best you can on each and every hand.

Sometimes I wish there was an exact formula to follow each hand, but then things would surely get too boring. So, go get the first book in the Harrington series and give it a serious read. Then come back next time and we’ll look more closely at Volume II, “The Endgame.”

See you at the final table!