Match Play for Fun and Profit - Part 4: Three Playing Zones
by John Vorhaus 

In match play, chip count is everything. The number of chips you have, relative to the size of your foe's stack, will influence your betting options and decisions almost as much as the cards you hold.

Recall that on UB, heads-up matches begin with each player holding 1000 in chips, with the blinds at 5 and 10, and with the small blind on the button. Chip counts rise and fall in exactly see-saw fashion: What I win you lose, and vice versa. With this in mind, I'd like to introduce you to three stack-related playing zones, and discuss how the zone you're in impacts the way bet.

• The most prevalent playing zone is between 500 and 1500 chips, what I call the BFM or Big Fat Middle. While it's possible to get lucky and win the match from the BFM, your real objective here is just to gather enough chips to get up over 1500.
• If you have more than 1500 chips, you're in the DP or Dominant Position. In this situation, you have two goals: to maintain your DP; and to win the match.
• With less than 500 chips, you are said to be IP or In Peril. An IP player must strive to survive, escape the IP zone, return to the BFM, and get back into contention in the match.

Most players don't realize it, but match play is much less about winning all your foe's chips than it is about moving him into an imperiled position, while staying out of such a position yourself.

I figure if I can get any foe down below 500 in chips, I should be able to finish him off. Likewise, I recognize that if I'm below 500 in chips, I'm gonna need both boldness and good fortune to get out of that hole.

So it's a hole I try to stay out of at all cost!

This changes how I think about making or calling bets. If a bet doesn't put either me or my foe into the IP, I don't really care about it one way or another. It's just another stop along the long road to victory. Simply put, no single bet matters - ever - if it doesn't move you or your foe from one zone to another.

Say you're holding 940 in chips and your foe bets 60 into a 60-chip pot on the river. Whether you call that bet or not, you'll still conclude the hand in the BFM, and begin the next hand in the BFM, with no material shift in the balance of power.

But if you're holding 940 in chips and your foe bets 600, it's a totally different situation. Calling that bet will result in a change of state for both of you. If you win, you'll be DP and he'll be IP. If you lose, it's the other way around. Either way, you'll both be moved out of the BFM. Unless you're quite confident that you're going to win that bet, there is simply no reason to call. You don't want to risk shifting states, ever, if there's a reasonable chance that you'll end up in the IP zone.

Remember, your ace in the hole in this match is your superior understanding and skill. You're not afraid of throwing away hand after hand, so long as it keeps you in contention. You know that your foe will eventually give you an opening you can exploit. You want to be in the BFM when that happens, so that you can move into DP, and win the match from there.

This understanding creates a marvelous betting opportunity for you if you're savvy enough to see it and seize it. Seek those circumstances where you can make a bet which, if successful, will move you into DP, but if not successful will still leave you in the BFM.

Suppose, for example, that you have something like 1300 chips to your foe's 700. In that circumstance, if you bet 250 and win, you move your foe into the IP, but if you bet 250 and lose, you're still in the BFM. This is a strong move that you can afford to make.

If the situation is reversed, and you hold 700, you want to be much more certain of success before making this big bet. If you're wrong - if your foe calls when you figured he would fold, or if he calls with a better hand than you expected - you move yourself into the IP state.

Never willfully move yourself into the IP state.

If you do just this one thing right, you should have a better-than-average chance of winning most matches.

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