Poker Articles

By Lenny | Published May 27 2006, 02:39 AM
Harrington on Hold'em Volume II: The Endgame
by Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie

When I first heard Dan Harrington was writing a book, I knew it was not going to be “just another poker book”. With a Main Event bracelet on his wrist Action Dan will forever be known as a world champion, but his back-to-back final tables in 2003 and 2004 blew me away. This guy is just refuses to settle for playing less than brilliant poker every second, and if there is any way to make the final table, he will find it. The two Harrington on Hold'em books are really one book in two parts. Think, Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill except instead of samurai mastery we are witness to poker genius. Harrington on Hold’em Volume I did not disappoint in the slightest, in fact it exceeded my expectations, so much so I didn’t know quite what to expect from Harrington on Hold'em Volume II: The Endgame.

Whereas Vol. I is in some ways an introduction to NLHE tournament play, it goes into such detail with such clarity that even basic concepts are given new light. What would Vol. II have in store for me as it goes into “more detail in more advanced situations in the latter stages of the tournament where it really counts? To say the least, I was very happy when the shiny red volume landed on my doorstep courtesy of Amazon and UPS.

One of the first things I noticed is that Volume II wastes no time in getting to new material. Many authors may have spent 10, 20, or more pages re-hashing their first book in order to fill space and sell more copies of the original if the reader doesn’t already have it. Harrington on Hold’em it truly a second volume which starts seamlessly where the first book left off, think of it as an encyclopedia and Vol. 1 ends on the letter K and Vol. II picks right up at L and keeps on going. I appreciate this because the last thing I want as a serious student of poker is to wade through page after page of fluff when all I am trying to do is improve my game. Harrington obliges and plunges right in with the first section of the book devoted to making moves. Harrington covers some common and not so common bluffing situations and strategies, which are all worth reading.

The next section is where Volume II departs from the established poker lexicon and introduces some real groundbreaking ideas. Sure people had addressed the different phases of a tournament before, but to my knowledge Harrington’s concept of “M” as a lens through which to make your tournament decisions is entirely new, especially in how he applies it. For those of you who constantly struggle with the late stages of a tournament because your once healthy stack is continuously diminished by the ever-rising blinds, will enjoy Harrington’s comparison of this feeling to Stephen King’s The Langoliers. Now, of course your stack size will never be the only thing that figures into the equation, but this simple yet powerful way of gauging your position in the tournament is a very useful tool.

After introducing the M concept (your stack size/(cost per round)), Harrington uses it to analyze a variety of situations that arise in the latter stages of tournaments and how it affects your play and the play of those around you. Whether a player is aware of it or not, he will start pushing with more and more hands as he becomes desperate. The smart player knows this and uses all the tools and tricks Harrington describes to stay out of the emergency situations, but also keeps a close eye on those around him and knows when to exploit the dynamics of the tournament to make things uncomfortable for his opponents. These are what Harrington refers to as Inflection Points, the moments in the tournament when each decision becomes that much more important.

Volume II continues along as every tournament does, from working your chips and building your stack early, to exploiting opportunities on the bubble or pre-final table, and finally to short-handed play. There are a couple times when this comes up, right before the final table when you are waiting to consolidate and then at the FT as you battle for those lucrative top three spots. This is where Harrington excels in my opinion, both as a player and a writer and teacher of poker theory. He uses all of the tools he's described up to this point to help you see how to turn an average showing into a big score. I won't give away any more of the book as I really can't convey the value it offers, just buy it, read it, then read it again. You will be happy you did.

To buy this book on Amazon.com click here : Harrington on Hold'em Volume II: The Endgame