|
 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.
|
