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 The
publication of Harrington on Hold'em Volume I: Strategic Play last year
filled a gaping void in the literature available on no-limit hold'em - for
the first time, a step-by-step guide to navigating the nuances of poker's
most complex game was available. If betting in no-limit can be considered
the language through which players converse with one another, the tutorials
found in Volume I provided the reader with the vocabulary necessary to start
forming sentences. Harrington on Hold'em Volume II: The Endgame builds upon
those tutorials with more advanced concepts, demonstrating to the reader how
to express complex thoughts and manipulate his opponents. With the
assumption that the reader knows how to calculate odds and read the board in
any given situation, Harrington focuses this time around on making moves,
how a player's strategy must change as the tournament progresses, the
dynamics of short-handed tournament tables, and heads-up play.
The first section of Volume II focuses on various moves that a player may make
at the table which do not depend solely on the value of his hand.
Essentially this comes down to the art of bluffing. For anyone who thinks
that bluffing in no-limit hold'em is simply a matter of playing any two
cards as if they were aces, this chapter should be a true eye-opener. More
than eight different categories of bluffs are discussed in detail, including
the table conditions necessary for pulling them off and how each type of
bluff should be run by players employing different styles. Also covered are
slowplaying and methods of getting as many chips into the pot as possible
when holding a monster hand.
After covering the various sorts of moves any good player should have in his
arsenal, Harrington moves on to cover what he calls "inflection points,"
moments in a tournament where strategy changes are dictated by changes in a
player's chip stack. Harrington introduces the concept of forces governing
inflection points. "M," the strong force, is the ratio of the player's chips
in relation to the blinds and antes. "Q," the weak force, is the ratio of
the player's chip stack in relation to the average stack remaining in the
tournament. This is where the book really begins to become
tournament-specific, and any player who has not been exposed to these
concepts in the past should see a marked improvement in results after
careful study. Understanding M and Q, and how they affect tournament
strategy, can be the difference between bubbling out and finishing in the
money.
Once inflection points have been introduced and given a thorough discussion,
short-handed play is covered. As Harrington says, short-handed play is
"poker on steroids," featuring accelerated action with more all-in moves and
amped-up pressure in nearly every situation. This section of Volume II
discusses how to adjust the calculation of M to account for the short table,
how to adjust tactics by slowplaying and controlling pot odds, and the
necessary consideration of how the tournament's prize structure will affect
your opponents' play.
After covering short-handed play the book moves on to heads-up play, something
with which many players have no experience at all. Harrington introduces a
basic pre-flop heads-up strategy and covers how to adjust for variations in
M and how to use position to your best advantage. After the theoretical
discussion comes what is probably the single most valuable portion of Volume
II, the inclusion of two sample heads-up sessions: one imagined session
between the reader and another unnamed player, and the actual heads-up
sequence between John D'Agostino and Phil Ivey from the Turning Stone
tournament in 2004. These sessions see all the theory covered through the
previous chapters of Volume I & II put into action in the one situation
every player wants to find himself - the final battle to determine who takes
home first prize.
The layout of the book is identical to that of the first volume in that after
each chapter there are multiple example hands that illuminate those
concepts. Just as this was a major strength of Volume I, so it is with
Volume II. The book is easy to re-read after you've covered it once, whether
you need to revisit specific concepts that have been problematic for you or
just want to review material in order to get a firmer grasp on it. Volume
II: The Endgame is the perfect companion piece to Volume I: Strategic Play,
and any serious tournament player should have it in his library.
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