Harrington's Zone System in Sit and Go's

Dan Harrington first proposed the Zone System in his second book.  This book was titled, "Harrington on Hold'em, Volume 2: The Endgame."  What this system does is it categorizes every situation in a tournament into five separate sections.  The sections, or "zones", are determined by your stack compared to the blinds and antes.  The resultant is labeled "M".  So, for example, if you have 900 chips and the blinds are 15/30 with no antes, you'd have a M of 20.  (15+30=45, 900/45=20)  Here's the five categories, and how you should play in each of them...

M of 20 or more

When you have an M of 20+, you are said to be in the Green Zone.  When you have this many chips, you can use various styles of play, and pretty much can try anything.  The green zone is the best situation to be in, but you can't play too wild, as you still need to build your stack.  Blinds are always raising, so you can never have too many chips.  You should use a tight aggressive strategy when you are in the Green Zone.

M of 10-20

When your M is between 10 and 20, you are said to be in the Yellow Zone.  You still have a decent chip stack, but you need to make some aggressive plays here, because blinds are catching up to you.  You should now avoid low pocket pairs and low suited connectors, because these hands lose their implied value that is needed to increase your stack.  Your stack is not big enough to call for playing these hands.

M of 6-10

You are now getting a little low.  You lose the opportunity to make some aggressive plays.  The problem is that if you try to make an all in move against a raise/re-raise, it's not going to be enough of a raise to get opponents to fold decent hands.  Your goal here is to be the first one to enter pots.  You shouldn't be calling with low pairs or suited connectors, because they are just drawing hands.  An excellent play here is to reraise all in in the big blind if you suspect the dealer or small blind is stealing.

M of 1-5

When you get to this point, your only move is all in.  Your only hope here is to steal some blinds and antes when you can, then double up when you have the right cards.  You can play small pairs or suited connectors, but only if you're going all in.  Basically, any decent hand is worth an all in.

M of <1

When you get to this point, you're basically eliminated.  It will take some crazy hands to get back into the sit and go.

Ready to Play?

If you are ready to use this strategy at the tables, then head over to our Best Site for Poker Tournaments page to pick one of the highest rated MTT rooms.

Last: What is a Poker Tournament?