As tournament players, perhaps we sometimes feel pressured to make a move earlier in a poker tournament than we’d ideally 🧾 like to. Maybe the situation is not perfect, but we’ve noticed the blinds-levels appear to be going up rapidly. Unless 🧾 we take the current opportunity, we could easily end up becoming hopelessly short-stacked.
If we had the luxury of never needing 🧾 to worry about running out of chips, perhaps we would have passed up on the marginal opportunity that faces us 🧾 in favour of a much stronger situation.
Unfortunately, this is not how tournament poker works. We can’t go around playing individual 🧾 hands in isolation. We have to seriously consider something that isn't a factor for cash game players - our tournament 🧾 life.
The best decision at a tournament table is always going to take into account the effective stacks and the blind-levels. 🧾 We are interested in how “healthy” our stack is relative to the blinds, which will help to dictate our strategy. 🧾 If only there was a formula we could use to help us calculate this...
Actually, there is – it’s commonly referred 🧾 to as “M-ratio” or just “M” for short.
Table of Contents
M Ratio – The Calculation
The idea behind “M” is that it 🧾 tells us how many rounds we will last given our current stack size and the size of the blinds/antes.
So let’s 🧾 see if we can calculate our M for a simple tournament situation.
Question – We haveR$1,000 in our stack. The SB 🧾 isR$10, the BB isR$20, and the antes areR$1 and we are playing 10-handed. What is our M?
We simply need to 🧾 add the relevant values to the formula. “Antes” stands for total antes that are played in a round and would, 🧾 therefore, be calculated as:
Ante-price * number of players
We are interested in the amount we pay for antes in the entire 🧾 orbit, rather than just the value of an individual ante. So in this case, if the value of an individual 🧾 ante isR$1 and we have to pay it ten times per orbit, we will pay a total ofR$10 in antes 🧾 each orbit.
M =R$1000 / ($10 +R$20 +R$10)
M =R$1000 /R$40
M = 25
An M of 25 essentially means that we can last 🧾 another 25 orbits, assuming the structure of the hands remains the same. Which of course, it won’t, because soon the 🧾 next blind level will arrive and our M will become considerably reduced. So having an M of 25 in a 🧾 regular tournament is not the same as having an M of 25 in an ultra-turbo tournament. The blind structure must 🧾 be taken into consideration.
Using M Value to Make Decisions
We now have calculated our value for M, but on its own, 🧾 it’s not going to be especially useful. How can we use our value for M to help us define our 🧾 strategy in a tournament setting?
In his book Harrington on Hold'em, Dan Harrington provided some rough guidelines for how we should 🧾 evaluate and use our value for M. He defined several zones in which the value of M may fall, and 🧾 described what our resulting strategic outlook should be.
M is greater than 20 – The Green Zone – With an M 🧾 larger than 20 we typically have the luxury to choose whichever style we prefer, whether that be a conservative or 🧾 aggressive style. We have enough time to be patient and wait for strong holdings, but we also have the freedom 🧾 to dabble with more speculative hands and play aggressively. Taking some losses is not a huge problem at this stage, 🧾 and the effective stacks are still deep enough that we can get away with expanding our range in some scenarios.
M 🧾 is 10-20 – The Yellow Zone – Now we are starting to feel the time pressure a little bit. We 🧾 must start looking for spots to get involved and play hands. Some of the more speculative poker hands we may 🧾 have been able to play while in the green zone may now suffer from reduced playability. This reduction is a 🧾 result of the smaller effective stacks.
M is 6-10 – The Orange Zone – The pressure tightens here, and we want 🧾 to avoid wasting any chips. Cold-calling starts to become risky. Our main focus should be trying to be the first 🧾 player involved in the pot, wherever possible. If we are the ones open-raising, we have increased expectation as a result 🧾 of additional fold-equity. This is valuable here since every chip counts.
M is 1-6 – The Red Zone – We have 🧾 now reached what is known as the push/fold stages of tournament poker. We only have two options at this stage: 🧾 Move all-in or fold.
M is less than 1 – Dead Zone – We should avoid this particular zone at all 🧾 costs. Nearly everything is dependent on luck at this stage. We want our tournament career to be about skill, not 🧾 luck. We should look for a spot where we are first to act and shove all-in, hoping to get lucky. 🧾 Players have gone on to win big tournaments even after arriving at the dead-zone, so not all hope is lost. 🧾 In most cases, though, our tournament life is over.
Adjustment for Shorthanded Tables
The M calculation works for tables of all sizes. 🧾 The number of orbits we have left, won’t change hugely based on the number of players at the table. It 🧾 will change slightly, since we will pay a different amount of antes, meaning we will have slightly more orbits remaining 🧾 assuming the tables get shorthanded. (Usually the tables will get shorthanded only when approaching the final table. For the most 🧾 part, we will be playing tournaments with max capacity).
But is having an M of 5 on a 5-handed table the 🧾 same as having an M of 5 on a 10-handed table? Not really. Although the remaining number of orbits won’t 🧾 change that much, we will have twice as many opportunities to play hands on the 10-handed table.
To help us deal 🧾 with this, we can make use of what is known as effective M, which takes into account the need to 🧾 make faster decisions when the tables become shorthanded. We can refer to the standard value of the M calculation as 🧾 simple M.
The relationship between the two is as follows:
Essentially, we are taking a percentage of Simple M based on how 🧾 “full” the table is, assuming that a full table contains 10 players. So if a player has a simple M 🧾 of 10 on a 5-handed table, then he has an effective M of 5.
Let’s try a question to put everything 🧾 together.
Question – Effective stacks areR$1,000. Blinds areR$20/40 with antes ofR$2. We are 5 handed. Calculate simple M and effective M.
Okay, 🧾 hopefully, you should be able to do this on your own. The calculation is below:
Simple M
$1000 / ($20 +R$40 + 🧾 ($2 * 5))
$1000 / ($20 +R$40 +R$10)
$1000/R$70
Simple M = 14.3
Effective M
14.3 * (5/10)
14.3 * 0.5
Effective M = 7.15
So the next 🧾 time we are at the poker tables, let’s try to be aware of our M-ratio. Use it to help define 🧾 the strategy we will be using at any given stage of the tournament.
