so im half way done with harrington on he vol 2 and ive found myself very stuck on some concepts regarding hand analysis.

the situation is one of his problems in the back of the chapters and for a quick break down your at 8 handed table with 5k chips 2nd to act with 10c10d blinds 100/200

( i know im not giving enough info for feedback with the hand its harringtons analysis that i have question about)

so you open to 3.5x to 700 and guy from sb over shoves like 14k on you

okay so harringtons starts to break everything down and he gets to this part where his reasoning goes something like this

opponent has high pair 50% time which you would be 20% underdog
he has 2 high cards 30% time which you would be 55% favorite
he has low pair/bluff 20% time which you would be (most of time) 80% fav.
so then he goes
50% times 20%, 10% chances
30% times 55%, 17% chances
20% times 80%, 16% chances
Total winning chances = 10% + 17% + 16% = 43%
Now if your still with me after all that what i dont understand is where or how he gets the 10% 17% and 16% ???? is he multiplying the percents? what am i missing here..i understand the concept but not the numbers i guess. anyone who has read the book or can help me with this concept plz plz help. sry for such long thread

This makes no sense to me at all. Letting % X % decide whether or not you're going to make a big pre-flop call is retard IMO.

Knowing your opponent, their current mental state, their likely range, their willingness to bluff, and the way they value their chips is more important than that % BS.


I get that you're looking for someone to explain to you how this Harrington method works, but to me it just sounds like junk.

Who am I to judge Dan Harrington though??

First, you must know that X% == X / 100. So 50% == .5

Harrington lists every hand possibility and the percentage of how often villain will be holding it. 50% + 30% + 20% = 100%.
These percentages are used as weights. Think of it as your GPA based on a 3 credit or 4 credit course. You'll care about getting a good grade in the 4 credit course more than the 3 credit course.

So for the first situation, you multiply your 20% chance to win (.2) * the 50% weight (.5) and get .1 (10%)
Now you do the same thing for the other hand possibilities and add them up to find out your chance at winning the pot.



EDIT: I haven't read his book. That's just how it makes sense to me mathematically.

Originally Posted by bobg3

So for the first situation, you multiply your 20% chance to win (.2) * the 50% weight (.5) and get .1 (10%)
Now you do the same thing for the other hand possibilities and add them up to find out your chance at winning the pot.

Once you get into a hand and attempt to apply this I will likely be calling "clock" and really making your thought process hard.

Originally Posted by Wallace

Once you get into a hand and attempt to apply this I will likely be calling "clock" and really making your thought process hard.

I could never pull it off, but I used to be a math major and know some nerds who can burn through mental math like that like nothing.

Originally Posted by Wallace

This makes no sense to me at all. Letting % X % decide whether or not you're going to make a big pre-flop call is retard IMO.

Knowing your opponent, their current mental state, their likely range, their willingness to bluff, and the way they value their chips is more important than that % BS.


I get that you're looking for someone to explain to you how this Harrington method works, but to me it just sounds like junk.

Who am I to judge Dan Harrington though??

actually, his likely range is pretty much the only thing that matters. the other things you list are definitely factors that would affect his range, but once we have used everything we know to estimate villain's weighted holdings, none of the other stuff matters anymore and it's just a pure math question.

P.S. the pot odds we're getting dictate that we need 42.2% equity to make a +cEV call. so this is a pretty close spot and there's pros and cons for both sides that go beyond just the factors involved in this particular hand. if this hand came up in a live donkament i'd probably just fold assuming the field is soft enough for my edge is just staying alive to be pretty significant. if this happened online while i was multitabling i might just take the higher variance route just for the sake of my hourly rate.

ya it comes out to be a very marginal situation. ty for the feedback bob your math clears it up for me. i agree as well that doing all of this in your head would be very tough atleast it would be for me.. the math seems to be somewhat easy but I would not be able to crunch that many numbers bfore my time expires lol... i think the hand played out to him calling and the other guy flipping JJ which to me makes sense because of the overshove.

Originally Posted by squeezyplayer

if this hand came up in a live donkament i'd probably just fold assuming the field is soft enough for my edge is just staying alive to be pretty significant.

I really like this sentence! Toss out all that math % X % BS and just see the overall value. Putting 700 into a pot and having someone go ballistic to 14K should almost always warrant a fold unless you're up against a total maniac or a player on severe tilt from losing his ass on the previous hand.

If you can beat the game then why take big pre-flop risks? Makes no sense at all.

True statement. the situation is rather rare for someone to ovr shve 3x your stack and really "consider" a call...i fold in the spot all most all the time unless like you said your up against a maniac but i wanted to use the thread to more understand the analysis because it could maybe be usefull in other aspects of play. not just preflop confrontations