The Mzone and Game Critical Intersects in Poker Tournaments

Knowing your MZone in a poker tournament is going to give you a calculated advantage over your opponents, but it won’t save you from bad beats, better players, and mental errors on your part. However, there is a way that (knowing) your MZone can help you make better decisions that will ease your decision making process and thus your second guessing.

The concept is called the Game Critical Intersect or GCI for short. What the GCI does for your game is somewhat like having a little coach sitting behind you and telling you if you should be involved in a hand or not. It can eliminate huge losses from bluffs that donâ??t work, get you off of dangerous boards, and make you more sensitive to position plays. Not only that, the GCI can make your all in decisions much easier especially when you are getting near the money.

Here is how it works. There are five color zones of M you can have and I like to divide them between two good mzones that are named yellow and green, and 2 weak mzones that are named red and orange.

Being in one of the good mzones of yellow and green you have the ability to have a more flexible game allowing you to make moves at pots, steal blinds, and see lots of hands in late position for cheap. This is because you ratio of stack to the blinds and antes are at least comfortable at this point. We can call this situation a PLUS stack, where you are likely above the average stack size of the hold’em tournament.

If however you happen to be red or orange mzoned, you donâ??t have much, if any of that kind of flexibility. Chances are you are already looking for a hand to go all in and double up in a heads up confrontation. This we can call a MINUS stack where you are likely below the average stack size of the tournament.

The difference between these two stack situations is that very often you may be involved in a hand that threatens your position in the tournament in to becoming a MINUS stack where you started the hand in a PLUS stack situation. In such a hand then, you are in a game critical intersect, and the type of hands you need here, are the nuts, or very close to it. In other words, as your stack depletes in a tournament, the more your game should open up. You would easily let your red or orange stack ride on top pair, but with a PLUS stack you want more than that if it means a huge hit to your tournament hopes.

This is just one of the ways knowing your mzone allows for better decision making and adds a clear advantage to your game strategies.