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How I use M in online poker tournaments
2008-09-08 10:52:00

Ryan Fisler
  
 
M is a concept made popular by the Dan Harrington with his Harrington on Hold-em Series of books. It applies primarily to tournament poker. Many reading this will be very familiar with the concept, but for those who don't I will provide a brief introduction.

It is a number that represents your chip stack in terms of how many rounds of forced bets that your stack can afford, using the small blind, big blind and antes.

Using M in Poker Tournaments

As an example if you have a stack of 5500 and the blinds are 100 "“ 200 with a 25 ante at a 10 man table you would have an M of 10. 5500 / 100sb+200bb+250antes 5500/550 = 10

How I use M is very close to the recommended guidelines from Harrington with an extra zone I call the Re-steal Zone. It is the top part of the orange zone and the bottom part of the yellow zone, this area should be singled out as the best time to make a move over top of somebody opening the pot. You should look for suitable conditions, which I will explain further below.

This changes the zones to:

Green Zone 20M and over"“ Play as conservatively or aggressive as you want to. Play low pairs and suited connectors for implied odds, when in position by flat calling or raising in the case of suited connectors. Try to avoid risking large portions of your stack without a clear edge.

Yellow Zone 13M-19M "“ You need to start to loosen up your starting hand selection. Many hands become playable for opening the pot when folded to, such as KTs to QJo and ATo. It should be emphasized that these hands should be played when you are in mid to later positions most of the time when there is less people to act and possibly re-raise you. The exception is when you think the table will respect an UTG raise from you if you have a tighter image and the table is overall tight as well.

Re-Steal Zone 8M-12M - The Re-Steal Zone. This is where re-steal shoving becomes your optimal play in my opinion. Most strategies stress the importance of being first in the pot at this stage but I think that it's better to be second in the pot at this stage by reshoving over top of open raisers. Suitable conditions can be obtained by choosing to strike when somebody has been opening the pot frequently, against somebody with close to your stack size or slightly bigger for best chance of folding. It is best these days to pull this move against people who are raising from mid-position when you are to act after them. If you do it against late position it loses much value because everyone expects it to be a re-steal. If you do it against early position it can be too dangerous unless the player is known to use UTG as a stealing position. You can choose to steal with any suited connector or gap suited connector like 56s and 97s. Even j9s. 22 probably isn't that good of an idea and either is A rag or KT, hands like that will be dominated too often. When the player opens from mid position who is opening frequently, you can then shove if you have a re-steal hand or with a real hand of course. This deserves to be differentiated between the lower zone where you shouldn't steal with speculative hands and the higher zone where you should be open raising much more instead of waiting for spots to do this.

Orange Zone 6M-7M - This is the traditional orange zone for me. Everyone hates this zone as do I, so I shortened it to only cover 6-7m but it still needs much explanation as it is what trips up players most. Again most strategies stress the importance of being first in the pot at this point. I still like to be second in the pot at this point with a shove over top of an opponent. The difference is I do it with good hands only. I actually wait for a hand like 99+ or AQ+ at this point to re-shove. These re-shoves are usually called much more often, because the stack is shorter and I may have been reshoving with weak hands in the other zone. By waiting for actual good hands to play at this point in the tournament you can contrast what they are expecting you to do and when you end up all-in you will have a better range then your opponents.

The problem with open raising at this point is that if you are doing this and then folding to a shove you are spewing chips and if you are raising with weak hands like you would in the yellow zone and then calling shoves you are going to have a worse range then your opponents. This means that you should actually play pretty tight in this zone and open raise only strong hands that you can comfortably call a shove with. Or more desirable in my opinion is to get second in the pot with a reshove with a good hand. This way you accumulate a lot more chips as it's not just blinds and antes but the initial raise that you are going over top of. You will also be called with a wide range from your opponents when you are in this zone so by using good hands your range will be ahead which means this increases the amount of times you will double up in this spot. Doubling up here is key in tournaments and going from 6-8m to 12-16m in 1 hand can turn a tournament around.

By using this strategy you can focus on accumulating bigger pots with a raise in them and putting yourself into double up situations. It's well worth it to risk busting before you get into the red zone when you are getting into spots with an edge. Your reads and position play key importance when using M. You don't want to reshove a guy who raised under the gun when you have 99, and you don't want to reshove a guy who hasn't open raised in 5 orbits with an AJ or an 88, but you do want to reshove a guy in the cutoff who is raising relentlessly when you have AJ or even 88 in the button, sb or bb. Use your judgment with the M for the best results.

This is also my Open Shove any pair from 22-88 zone. Folding these hands in this zone is a mistake and raising them with the intention of folding to raise is a mistake. You should either open raise and call a shove or just open shove. I elect to open shove with them so I have the most fold equity possible and increase the amount of times I take down the pot. Again use judgment, don't open shove 22 from UTG and don't open shove 33 from second position when your table is very loose. Open shove all pairs more from later positions and mid position and more against tighter opponents. Tighter from early position even 77-88+ and tighter when your opponents are looser. Use the idea often heard of playing tight on a loose table and loose on a tight table combined with your position and your M to decide your whether to shove a pair when you are at the table.

Red Zone - 1M-5M "“ Open Shove or Fold. That is your only decision here and that is the same as what most strategies will tell you. The only specification I take here, is I vastly prefer to shove from late position and I don't shove hands like Ace rag, K rag, Q rag, J rag, and total garbage hands like T6, 83 etc.

I choose hands like 67s or 44 and from mid to late position where there is less chance of getting called as your main goal is usually to scoop the blinds and antes unless you have a real hand in which case your goal is to double up. Again use your judgment, if the guy in the BB has a monster stack and is calling every shove from a small stack, don't shove the button with J8. But if your table is excessively tight, feel free to open shove from UTG+1 with 86o. These days people's range has opened up considerably in calling these all in bets. The counter is to wait for spots a little better then before, by waiting to do your open shove when you have either a real hand or a good shoving hand in mid to late position against opponents who can fold.

>1M - You should not get here by getting blinded out, but if you end up here just try to get first in the pot and shove when any first in opportunity arises to get in against a random hand. Maybe you should take up checkers?

---

When you are in the middle of a hand at the table, you don't have time to calculate all the necessary calculations to choose the optimal mathematical play with the most EV, but you do have time to calculate your M and use your judgment and your reads with your position to make very close to the best decisions possible.

This article is in the September 2008 issue of Bluff Magazine

Ryan Fisler

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Cary Says:
 
Very good article. I've often thought the same thing about your resteal zone. That's always been a stack size I've tried to be 2nd in the pot and you're the first person I've seen put that into words. Nice. About what Will said...In one of Todd's videos he talked about the extreme short stack and how it is better to take your blind than shove in a spot where you will likely be called multiway. I thought that was interesting and never really thought about it before.

Posted On: 2009-02-25 01:11:52
tippergfunk Says:
 
UTG = under the gun

Posted On: 2008-10-09 01:52:07
mimicodude Says:
 
what does UTG mean? Fred a newbie fred.kolowrat@sympatico.ca P.S. just bought Dan Harrington's volume 1

Posted On: 2008-09-11 23:26:42
Will Says:
 
Maybe you should add a section about finding a way to create a sidepot with M < 1. I have found this to be an effective strategy for ending up heads up at showdown while still looking to quadruple - quintuple up. Eg. You have 1.5 BBs. You can call vs any raise (with any hand you're willing to go broke on; which should be a lot). If the raiser gets called by anyone else, there is most likely a 2-3BB sidepot that someone will try to steal whether they hit or not.

Posted On: 2008-09-08 17:42:15
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