Poker Articles

As you read this site, you will frequently hear me refer to a concept known as M. The idea behind M, which was developed by Paul Magriel, first became widely known in Harrington on Hold 'em Vol. 2. M is fairly simple even if its implications are complex. M simply represents the number of times the initial pot a player has in their stack. For example, if the blinds start at 10/20 and you get 1500 chips, that means your M starts at 50. Later in the game, when blinds and antes get huge, your M will shrink. M is therefore a handy guideline for how loose and aggressive you need to be during any given stage of the tournament. With a high M (during the early levels) you play for implied odds and big pots with monster hands, basically like you would in most cash games. As M starts to shrink, raw hand value becomes vastly more important.

Why use M instead of the more conventional (for cash players, at least) usage of big blinds in your stack? A cash player sitting at a $1-$2 no-limit game with $200 would say he has 100 BB's, not an M of 66.7. One reason is that you will be open pushing and picking up just the initial pot frequently in tournaments, which is something you basically never do in cash. Each time you do this, you can simply add one M to your stack, which is very convenient for getting your new M while playing multiple tables. Another crucial reason is that using big blinds overlooks the incredibly important component of ante, something cash players don't have to worry about. Here's a quick example I always give to new players. Let's say you have a starting stack - 1500 chips - at 100/200 blinds, giving you an M of 5. The blinds go up to 100/200 with 25 ante. At a full table, what is your new M?

The answer is that it's slightly less than 3. Using big blinds to determine how aggressive you should be would give you the same number - you have 7.5 big blinds, both before and after the ante kicks in. But using M shows you that your effective stack has drastically shrunk compared to the opening pot, and that you need to turn on the aggression right now. (Not coincidentally, I think people make the most M-related mistakes precisely at that blind level - 100/200 with 25 ante. The increase in levels there is fairly deceptive - adding in a measly 25 ante doesn't seem like much - and most people don't adjust enough, allowing themselves to blind out too quickly.)

So what are the implications of M? One could fill an entire book with them, but I'll attempt to lay down some quick guidelines for what your strategy should be with various M's. Try to remember that if you have the big stack at the table, the most you can lose in any hand is the next highest stack's M (what we call effective M), and you should use that in your calculations.

When your M is over 20: This is pretty deep stacked for a tournament, and for the most part, you can play more like a cash game when the effective M's are this high. In the early to mid levels, your M will frequently be in this range, and you should be looking to play hands with good implied odds, emphasize position, and exercise pot control with medium-strength hands - all the sorts of things you do in cash games.

When your M is 11-20: With this range, you can no longer speculate as much, and have to focus mostly on hands that have strict high card value. However, you still have many moves available to you, such as 3 betting and then folding to a 4 bet pre-flop, or firing multiple barrels on a bluff after the flop. I generally like to keep it tight in this range, but I am willing to make moves in an attempt to get my stack back up to the 20+ range.

When your M is 6-10: This is what I like to call the "reship zone". Here, your best move by far will be to move all-in over somebody who open raises, hopefully inducing a fold and increasing your stack by a couple of M's. This play is best made in blind vs. blind or blind vs. button/cutoff confrontations, situations where your opponent is likely to be opening with a marginal hand and will be willing to fold it to a show of strength. With this stack, you can't really afford to open raise with very many hands that you aren't willing to play for all your chips. Keep it tight, but look for spots to 3 bet people all-in.

When your M is 1-6: You're essentially in push/fold mode here. Open raising will commit too much of your stack to be able to fold to a re-raise, so just push your chips in and maximize your fold equity. People who are proficient in turbo Sit and Go's will have an advantage with M's of this size, because they know how to play the push/fold game very well. Be aggressive when you can open push with fold equity, because you'll have to either pick up a few blinds or double up to have a chance. Value position more heavily than your cards - with an M around 4, for example, I'd often rather shove the button with absolute trash like 59o than shove under the gun with something like A9o. Don't be afraid to bust, because you'll have to make something happen very soon.

I'll go over the many implications of M in great detail in future articles, but for now try to practice using it and get a feel for it. The concept is very important and definitely applies to multi-table tournaments as well. Learn to use it. You'll have a huge leg up on the smaller buy-in players, and you can start to understand how the better high buy-in players think.

* Bryan “bparis” Paris is a poker instructor who has had success in high-stakes online tournaments - winning the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand and the Full Tilt $60k Guaranteed tournaments.  Those interested in receiving poker instruction can contact "bparis" by sending an email to bparis85@gmail.com.