question on tourney blinds cushion

The tourney starts and you get 1,500 chips. If the blinds are 10/20 and it's 10-seater tables you can fold 10 s*** hands and lose only 30 chips. 1500/30=50, so you have a 50-round "cushion."

Later in the tourney you have 10,000 chips but the blinds are 200/400 with 25 ante. You pay 25*10=250 every 10-hand round, +600=850 chips per round. 10,000/850=11.76, so you have an 11.76-round "cushion."

My question is: at what "cushion" levels would you guys adjust your strategy? I guess another way of putting it is, regardless of how big your opponents' stacks are, when are you tall-stacked, when are you short-stacked, and when are you okay-stacked relative to the blinds?

What you've stumbled across here, deliberately or otherwise, is the "M" concept. M is the number of times you can go around the table before you go broke, exactly as you've calculated here.

Usually, an M below 10 is considered short stacked, and you start looking for spots to get all your chips in with a good hand. Below 5, you're pretty much looking for spots to get all your chips in before the flop.

With an M of around 30, like you discussed in your first example, you should be able to play your normal game.

The Harrington on Hold 'em books cover this topic in some depth.

At what monster "M" level would you adjust your game for having a really *high* M?

Which of the HoH books goes over this? I have yet to buy them.

HoH 2 deals mostly with this.

Very high M you play similarly to a deep stack cash game, although a little conservatively as survival is more important than pushing marginal edges.

When M goes down to 20 or so, you stop playing speculative hands like suited connectors or small pocket pairs as implied odds are not there anymore. Basically, you don't limp anymore. For the hand to be worth playing, it should be worth raising. The plus side is that raises will get more respect at this stage if your opponent's M is in a similar range.

When M gets below 10, you do as OzExorcist says. The reason is that if raising commits you to calling a reraise all-in for pot odds, than you should shove in the first place to maximize fold equity.

Once again, if all Ms at the table are similar, there's a moment when the choice between standard raises and shoves is borderline. Typically, that's what happens close to the bubble of a SNG. Then it becomes very profitable to reraise all in on attempted steals, but this requires
that you make sure your opponent won't feel pot committed by his initial raise.

As Belgo's said, HoH 2 covers the concept in greatest depth.

As for adjusting for a high M, it's harder to define in any absolute terms. Like I said, with an M of 30 or above you can play your normal game, you should have any move you care to make available to you (double-barrell bluffs, check-raises, play with speculative hands, etc.)

It's the size of your M in relation to everyone else at the table that's more likely to affect your strategy though. If you've got an M of 40 and everyone else has an M of 10 or less you'll likely be able to push people around, steal a lot of pots and so on. Nobody can really threaten your position in any given hand.

If everyone has an M in the 30-40 range you might want to be more careful though, as they can all do some major damage to your stack.

Basically, with a high M you're free to play your natural game, be that TAG, LAG or whatever. It's as it shrinks that your options start getting reduced.

Your M is lower than you think.

This is true from a strategic point of view, and basically means that you need to play more hands in fast tournaments. And if you respect Harrington's book too closely you are more likely than not to be eaten by the rising blinds.

But from a single hand tactical perspective, what really matters is the ratio between the size of your stack (or your opponent's stacks) and the initial size of the pot (blinds and antes). That determines whether suited connectors or small pairs have correct implied odds, whether standard raises commit you or not, whether you have fold equity when you open shove, ... And there Harrington's M applies.

I think that is called the M concept according to my friend.

Well Gl on the felts

I have had the same thought as the author of this essay you reprinted, but the problem I see with it is that it's very hard to tell how many hands will get played at a particular blind level. Speed of play in tournaments doesn't stay constant so not even past evidence of play speed is a good indication of future play speed. And what happens if you get moved to a new table? So, yes, the M concept has limitations, but factoring in the blind structure only muddies the waters.

In general, tho, he's right: Your M is not useful for deciding how many hands you truly can fold before you get blinded out. It's more like a snapshot of a moment frozen in time that tells you where you stand right now.