Good afternoon everyone,
I’am reading/studying Harrington’s original tournament books and currently I’m on volume 2, the “zone system” specifically. Having a hard time with the “orange” and “red” zones for some reason, couple questions specifically:

(1) When you’re in the “orange zone” (6m-10m) and no one has entered the pot pre-flop, should it always be an open raise ALL-IN or can you still make a normal open raise?

(2) In the “orange” and “red” zones, exactly how should you play small pairs and suited connectors....if at all? Just in late position, any position, not much at all?

Any help at all is so appreciated!

Once you are under M=6/10bb, anything you are playing should be all-in. You simply have no room to play post and need to accumulate chips.

15-20bb it varies a lot depending on the situation. In general, you can make some raises, but you should really only raise in spots you think you can take it down or that you are willing to call re-raises with.

20-25bb you should still play your range, but, I would pick good spots and eliminate your weakest parts of your range except from LP. Small pairs are a big part of that.

1) the orange zone - you should look for spots to shove all in, but you are still a bit deep to open shove. What you should look for here are spots to shove over limpers or 3 bet shoves.

2) Too general a question. With an M of 9 you would be open folding small pairs in EP, but an M of 3 you should be shoving them. It is also opponent dependent. Is the table calling off too tight or too loose?

Thanks so much for your reply, it’s much appreciated. What advice do you have for the 6m - 10m (or 9bb - 15bb) range?

Among other options, look to re-steal pf raisers that have been too wide.

When you say, “open folding”.....does that mean no one has entered the pot yet and when it comes to me, I simply fold?

I’m sorry....when I wrote ^^^^ I was thinking post flop, please don’t even ask me why I was thinking that. LOL!!!

I agree with this for 9-15bb, but you want to aim this move at short or medium stacks, not big stacks. Jams on big stacks should be real hands unless they will fold most of their range back to you. I am simply not raising less than AI with 9-15bb unless everyone is short or I think there is almost no chance i'm getting re-raised. At this stage, i'm jamming all my value hands plus hands with reasonable equity if called and reasonable amounts of fold equity.

The thing with 9-15bb later in tournaments is that in most structures, the pot is going to start as 25-30% of your stack. Once you are at that point, a lot of hands are really good shoves from mid to late position just because the value of picking up the pot is huge.

shove up to 20BB and attack medium stacks NOT short stacks (or big stacks)

short stacks will shrug call their entire opening range (and usually they fist-pump call, because any time shorties don't shove pre they're usually nutted)

With 9-15bb are you raising nothing less than AI only when it’s to to re-steal a raised pot....or with the right hands are you also raising nothing less than an AI as the 1st one in the pot?

I am always going all in <15 bb's.

Also, the M thing is way too complicated for me. How do you take into account when you are getting close to a level change? I just use BB's and note when we are getting close to a level change that I will probably expand my opening ranges and lean towards getting it all in when it is anywhere near close. This also has the benefit of confusing observant people.

In other words I prefer to play man to man rather than zone.

we assess all other decisions in BBs - open sizing, 3! sizing, leverage (fold equity), effective stacks etc - so it's just easier to consider blind pressure in the same terms rather than doing 'M' calculations. can't remember the last time i figured out M.

but when you're starting out, it's still very useful reading M-theory, gap-theory and the other concepts in Harrington

When you ask, “how do you take into account when you are getting close to a level change?” What exactly do you mean?

My recollection of the Harrington "M" is that it is based on how many rounds you can survive if you don't play a single hand.

So you have to take into account the size of the blinds and the antes.

But what if you are close to an increase in the blinds? The current M is not likely to be the number of rounds you can survive if you take the increase into account.

If I’m in the orange zone (6-10M) and the blinds are about to go up in the next 2-3 hamds....I’m already thinking in terms of the red zone, which is the 1-5M zone. I would be done with the orange zone thinking.