Message Board : Help me on M, Effective M, and 10XBB.

Hey! 

I need to give some serious thought, study, and research to the idea of using 10 X BB or an M or Effective M to guide my necessity, according to theory, to be aggressive in my local “leaderboard” venue (Big Al’s Poker Club tournaments).  Or any tournament, I guess. 

For instance, we start with 4000 chips each, which is 80 BB (big blinds) with the starting blinds of 25 – 50.  If a player only lost the blinds he posted, by the time the blinds of 200 – 400 came around, he would have 3,775 chips left.  This is already less than 10 X BB, which would be 10 X 400 or 4000!  Should one now be prepared to go all-in?  If there were still a full table of ten players, the “M” of the player in this example would be 6.3, which means you could survive 6.3 orbits of the table before you are blinded out if you don’t play a hand.  In other words, the player’s “M” is just about demanding fairly immediate action.   Say the same player didn’t play at 200 and 400 blinds, and they were now 300 – 600, he would have lost 875 chips to the blinds leaving him 3,125, and now 10 X BB would mean he needed at least 6000 chips to feel even slightly comfortable at all.  His M is now 3.47!  And his Effective M, if you assume two players might be gone by now, is a paltry 2.776.  All-in now, or past due? 

Where am I mixed up?  Please help me clarifying my thinking on 10XBB, M, and Effective M.

Natchez Too 

Todd, thanks.  I had actually watched the last episode of Poker After Dark that you referred too the day before I posted.  I had them Tivo’d. 

Yes, there were a lot of all-ins, but mostly when it got down to two and three players, and Alan Cunningham was the foremost proponent of going all-in.  Especially after he got a huge stack.

But in my little rinky-dink tournament, which starts at 7:15 PM, with the blinds rising every fifteen minutes, by the time you get to the 200 - 400 example I gave above, it is only 7:30 PM!  With the 300 - 600 example it is 7:45 PM.  These tournaments go on till 11:00 PM on average though a few have ended at 10:00 PM or so, and a very few have gone to 11:30 PM to 12:00. 

So you see, it is early, real early in the tournament when you start hitting the 10XBB, M, and Effective M barrier.  Quite different than the ending of the Poker After Dark program you pointed out.  Are you telling me, that even at that early time if the Ms and Effective Ms dictate extreme aggression — even when you have only lost chips to blinds, that you should "follow the book?"

I know in my heart the answer to this must be yes, but it just does not seem intuitively correct in this setting. 

Natchez Too

Todd said:

Natchez,

Here’s the magic ratio 3:10:30.  You can raise 3x the blind and fold to a reraise is you have 10x the BB.  You can reraise and fold to a shove if you have 30x.  Not that folding is right in all cases, just that you can fold unless you are holding all but the worst hands.

So, if you are right around 10x, then you can raise 2.5x and get away from a hand.  Much below that, you are better off getting the full effect of fold equity and shoving it all in.  When you double up, can use the threat of your bigger stack to make smaller raises.

Also, if you have 10x the blinds, you should be moving in with a lot of pairs and a lot of big As if it’s raised in front of you.  When it’s that short, you have to be willing to gamble.

Todd:  Thanks.  I have saved the "Magic Ratio 3:10:30" in a safe place on my computer.  I have never seen this expressed before.  From whence did it originate?