The Dan Harrington Poker Tournament System

The Dan Harrington Poker Tournament System

Dan Harrington has written a book about poker in which he introduced a system for online poker tournaments. His book is called “Harrington on Hold'em, Volume II: The Endgame”. The system this book brings forward is called the Zone System and it basically splits up a tournament into various zones that depend on the stack of each player in comparison to the antes and the small and big blinds. You will enter a zone when you get the appropriate value to fit in it and you will play in each zone accordingly, applying different strategies for each and every one of them.

Harrington divided the players by a criteria based on comparing the amount of the money players have to the starting pot. So if you have $1500 and the blinds are $50/$100 and there are no antes required in this game then your money is equivalent to 10 times the starting pot. This value has been referred to by Harrington as the zone indicator and it has been abbreviated as “M”.

Zone 1 – Green Zone where M is 20 or more

Once you are in the green zone it means that you have sufficient money to play as you wish. This is mainly why it is called the green zone, because you can use any weapon, strategy or betting style you want. Here you must balance the way you play so that you will both protect and raise the amount of money you have in the stack. You can afford to play either tight or loose, whatever suits best your purposes.

Zone 2 – Yellow Zone where M is 11 – 19

Once you got here, it means you lost some money and you cannot play any more passively. You have to get aggressive with certain hands so you can get back on track. Risks are required because this is a tournament and you are directly competing with others in order to win real money. Also, you lose the ability to play some hand that cannot get you the implied odds necessary for a profit. You simply have to increase your stack again so you can play freely.

Zone 3 – Orange Zone where M is 6 – 10

If you are in this zone you are beginning to find yourself in serious trouble. You now can go and bet only when you are sure you can afford it. You will mostly check and call even if you have a winning hand because you might not have the stack to do more than that. You can even try to reserve all your chips for a move that you get you boosted, like an all-in move, but be careful and make this move only if you are sure of the positive outcome. Avoid all marginal calls and drawing hands that can get you in trouble and can make you lose gain because you really can’t take another loss.

Zone 4 – Red Zone where M is 1 – 5

If you managed to drop till here then you have no chances beside the all-in move. Because if you try and bet, even minimum, you will be obliged to play the hand and other player will try to take you out even if they can’t beat the hand. When your m is less than 3 you must expect to get called by players when you go all in. So, act accordingly and play if possible only the winning hand, the hand that will get you the pot after that all-in bet because that is the only chance you stand right now if you want to play further in this tournament.

Zone 5 – Dead Zone where M is less than 1

Once in the dead zone, you are probably out of the tournament or will be in a couple of minutes. You need an extreme luck to get back on track and you also need to play on a table with players that will not pay attention at all to your stack chips and therefore won’t try to get you out of the game. Wait until you are first in and move in with any cards you have at that moment. And then, if you get lucky you can win something. If you don’t, you’ll lose knowing you tried your best.

Are you trying to be a stockbroker?

Crazy story about the NASD and the series 7 examination.  Imagine studying for this thing and relying on it to get a job with a brokerage company?  You finish your test, you think you aced it and then you hit the Submit button and it says you failed.  You don't get the job you always wanted because the brokerage firm now says you can't work with the Series 7.  You leave the company, start working at a Starbucks and then one day you get a letter saying that you actually passed the Series 7.  Now you go back to the brokerage firm asking for your job back and it's already been given to someone else. 

 

Here's the link and the story:

URL: http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/brokerages/10260570.html

 

 

NASD Flunks on Series 7
By TSC Staff
1/6/2006 12:53 PM EST

The NASD just flunked its own test.

The Washington-based securities industry self-regulator said 1,882 people wrongly got failing grades on the Series 7 broker qualification exam over a 15-month period.

NASD said a software error caused those test takers to get failing grades when they had actually passed. The regulator said the screwup affected only exams on the cusp of the pass/fail line. People who took the test between Oct. 1, 2004, and Dec. 20, 2005, were affected.

The error caused some test takers to score just below the minimum passing grade, the NASD said, adding that no one got a passing grade in error. NASD said 60,500 people took the exam during the period.

The NASD said more than 1,000 people who got the wrong score have already retaken the exam and passed. More than 600 have not as yet rescheduled an exam date, and just over 200 are scheduled to retake the exam.

"NASD will immediately notify the affected individuals and firms," said CEO Robert R. Glauber. "In addition, because the integrity of our testing program is fundamental, we have undertaken a full review of this issue and are putting in place enhanced quality control measures designed to prevent a future reoccurrence. As appropriate, we will communicate any corrective measures."

The NASD describes Series 7 as "an exam covering critical areas of securities markets, and the laws, regulations and responsibilities of registered representatives." Passing is a requirement for an individual to conduct securities business with the public.

$60 million winner take all poker tournament

This is crazy isn't it. A $10 million buy in. I'm sure Ivey and may be a few of the other folks are being staked by other "investors." I often hear other professional players calling Ivey the best tournament player around. It wouldn't be that bad I guess if you stake $1 million of the $10 million and get $6 million in return if he wins. Let's put it this way, Ivey's chances of winning is a lot better than yours or mine. These professional poker players are making so much these days, $1 million is like chump change to some of these guys.


LOS ANGELES (AP) - Six players will compete in a winner-take-all $60 million poker tournament next summer in what's believed to be the largest single-day payout in the history of sports on television.

Fox Sports Net and Mansionpoker.net reached agreement on a three-year deal, with the pots growing to $75 million in 2007 and $100 million in 2008 for the one-day competitions at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.

The first tournament is scheduled July 12 and will last at least six hours and perhaps up to 10 hours, according to George Greenberg, the executive vice president of programming and production for FSN.

"This event will transcend poker in the United States and take on a global platform,'' Greenberg said Monday. ``It'll be the largest single payday in the history of sports and will turn the poker world on its ear."

Phil Ivey, who has a reputation as one of the world's best Texas Hold 'em players, will be one of the six taking part. Identity of the others will be announced later, Greenberg said, adding that the entry fee for each of the six is $10 million.

Poker has grown greatly in popularity since television became involved in recent years. FSN, ESPN, NBC-TV, the Travel Channel, GSN and Bravo have all presented TV series.

Perhaps the most popular televised event has been the World Series of Poker. Joseph Hachem of Australia collected $7.5 million for winning the main event of the 36th World Series in Las Vegas last summer. A field of 5,619 entered the $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold 'em tournament. Each of the nine players who reached the final table won at least $1 million.