Harrington On Holdem - Volume 2 (Help Me)

Hey all, I'm reading Harrington on Holdem (Volume 2 The Endgame) but I'm struggling to understand a bit. So if anyone who has read it could please put it into lame-man text for me it would be good. Or even just some general explaination.

Harrington talks about two key numbers :

M - The Ratio Of Your Stack To The Current Number Of Blinds and Ante
Q - The Ratio Of your Stack to The Average Chipstack left In The Tournament

How do I figure out this numbers quickly before my timer runs out (online poker), and two, what is the relevance on Q? I can see why M is so important. But Q??

Thanks guys, I thought I'd get someone to clear it up with me before I continued with the book!

Your M and Q are what Harrington calls the weak force and the strong force. Both are guages to assess the need to, make a move, and both apply to tournament play only. The M, a term coined by Paul Magriel, is the more important of the 2 concepts and is simply the size of you or your opponents chip stacks compared to the total of the blinds and antes or in short, the cost to play per round. On-line, this is a breeze to calculate because the chip stacks and pot total are usually displayed. In live play, you should always know the blinds and antes, but determining chip stacks at the table requires more of a knack. The Math = Pot/stack.

Your Q is a term coined apparently bt DH himself and as you said, it is the ratio of your chip stack compared to the average chip stack left in the tournament. Again, a breeze on-line, not so easy live. But, if you know the original buy in, and the number of players who started, you can determine the total value of chips in play. This number will remain constant throughout the tournament so you only have to do it once. The second part is trickier. To determine the average chip stack, you must be aware of how many players are left. In a large tournament, this might not be possible unless the information is provided somehow. In the bigger events it usually is. Vegas Night at the Elks Club, probably not.
Math = Your Chip Stack / (Number of original entrants x Buy-In) / Players Remaining)

Again some good news. This Q concept is like pokers version of determining your cholesterol level. It's a good thing to know, but it's more an indicator of overal health than immediate danger.

I have to do alot of math in my line of work. Usually to determine quantities of material that I will need to complete a project. Very rarely are exact numbers required. When I'm determining a ratio with some insignificant figures I'll often drop the last 1 or 2 digits from both numbers and round the numbers up or down to make the numbers easier to reduce.

Sorry for the long post BoTY. I know it's more than you needed, but I thought it might be helpfull for some of the new members to know what we were talking about.

Thanks for that post, it worked a bloody treat mate. Now I can keep reading the book with a better understanding of what he is going on about!

Nice post 4D, hope you don't mind if a math challanged older member avails himself of this info. Thanks. P.S. Finally got around to ordering Harrington's books & from what I have seen of posts so far am looking forward to reading them.

Four Dogs said:

Your M and Q are what Harrington calls the weak force and the strong force. Both are guages to assess the need to, make a move, and both apply to tournament play only. The M, a term coined by Paul Magriel, is the more important of the 2 concepts and is simply the size of you or your opponents chip stacks compared to the total of the blinds and antes or in short, the cost to play per round. On-line, this is a breeze to calculate because the chip stacks and pot total are usually displayed. In live play, you should always know the blinds and antes, but determining chip stacks at the table requires more of a knack. The Math = Pot/stack.

Click to expand...

Remember that the Pot is referring to the pot size before anyone makes any bets/raises preflop. The pot = blinds + antes.

Very nice post FD. Rep+.