Poker Sit and Go Report: Adapting Harrington’s Mzone for Sit and Go Tournaments

The M and MZone calculations are something you should be using and learning for yourself in sit and go tournaments. The M is more adaptable for mult-itournament play, but in single table sit and go tournaments M has its value as well.

Essentially the M is calculated by dividing your stack by the total of blinds and antes that you would pay at TitanPoker.com You don’t normally have antes in a sit and go so just combine the blinds and divide them into your stack. The resulting number is your M. If your M is between 1 and 5 you are in the red zone. If it’s between 5 and 10, that is the orange zone. The yellow zone would have an M of between 10 and 20, while the best place to be is in the green zone having an M of 20 or more. There is also a grey zone which is less than 1, and when you are there your stack is so low you are virtually out of the tournament.

Here is a sample video from my free video series at
PokerSitandGoReport

Let’s say you have 1200 chips left at TitanPoker and the blinds are 100 and 200. Your M would be 1200 divided by 300 equaling 4. With an M of 4 you are in the dangerous red zone. Let’s say across the table your opponent has 3560 chips. His M is 11.9 and he is in the yellow zone – relatively more comfortable than you.

The philosophy behind the color zones is that each one will have a bearing on your style of play. If you are traditionally tight, but find yourself in the orange or red zone, you are doomed unless you pick a hand and run with it. You may certainly lose with a hand like 77, but you won’t stand much of a chance anyway if your stack dwindles into the red and grey zones.

We all know what happens when you are in the red and grey danger zones. A big stack calls you with trash and beats your AQs with 93os. It can be aggravating, but really, he was right to play you with that hand because you let your stack dwindle too low. It’s a mathematical equation as opposed to hand strength.

Download the mzone spreadsheet and have some fun with it in your sit and gos. Very soon, you will know instinctively what zone you are in, and how you’ll need to adjust your strategy. What I might suggest is to load up a final table of an MTT and watch the players. While you are watching the tournament input the blinds, antes and each player's stack into the spreadsheet. This way you will get to know the range of zones, watch how players react to them, and be able to make quick calculations in your head.

It is also worthwhile to watch here what hands players play, and from what position given their MZone situation. If you do this while playing sit and go tournaments, and eventually move up to playing multitable tournaments you will have a hand up on your opponents if you can calculate your Mzone at critical stages of the tournament.

Poker Sit and Go Report: The Self Check

So you think you are finally making all the right moves. You have your math squared, you understand probabilities, and you play a well rounded, tight aggressive game.

Unfortunately this strategy has turned into a losing streak which has your bankroll on a freefall. In the meantime all the monkeys around you are benefiting from stupid hands, played stupid, with stupid flops. Why do the idiots constantly get rewarded? Why do they outdraw me every bloody time?

If this sounds like the kind of rant that is going through your mind while playing sit and go tournaments, the simple truth of it is - you are on tilt. It’s not them, it’s you.

Recognizing that you are not at your best mindset for playing poker is one of the toughest things to do. Poker is so reliant on your own psychology, that not having a handle on it can tailspin you at any level, at any time.

Consistent, profitable play is a result of constant self checks, not just in knowledge of the game but in knowledge of your own self. If you can recognize losing patterns and the black hole of spinning deep into negative bankrolling, you also have the self sufficient power to retract those pattern exact behaviors.

Some examples of negative mindset are accompanied by anger acted out in different ways.

You move to a higher limit table to make up for some losses. This is much more common than you may think and equally as disastrous on your bankroll.

There is a physical urge in your body that wants to exert force on something. This could be as tame as slamming your mouse or as violent as punching a hole in the wall. Ok then, either way, it’s time out.

You are short or ill tempered with people you care about. This has happened to me, and it has happened to everyone. This could be the result of a particularly stinging outdraw or huge self blunder. Whatever the reason, this is too far.

Now it’s one thing to recognize you may not be at your best, it’s entirely different if you still cannot do anything about it. In other words, does your urge to continue playing still override everything else? Then you are setting yourself up for tilt play, or even worse.

Stop playing, take time to think, because poker is a thinking man’s game. Thinking about the game and yourself is going to allow you the opportunities to not only improve but gain an introspective that will help you come to terms with the psychological complexities of the game.