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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.

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