What is a good "M" value in deepstack?

I'm just learning the whole "M" theory and I'm in a tourney right now with an M of 45. Can someone give me the values for good, bad and average? Thanks in advance.

Check this out for a very thorough guide:
http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazin...Isher-1474.htm

Thanks Sean, but does it change with shortstack to normal stack to deep stack? If so, by how much?

This one seems to be the normal range I have found.

Well obviously the higher the M the better, you can play tight, the lower your M drops the wider you have to open your range and try to double up through other stacks 40-50 in late stages would be really healthy obviously you want as high an m as possible but 40-50 when you're deep into a MTT would be decent 20-30 wouldnt be too too bad, 15 and down gets scary

Okay, thanks!

I can add one thing, when you get down to an M of 10 it's shove or fold...

+infinity - I always hate being in that spot

M of 10 or lower is push or shove
M of 15 - 20 is usually average.
M of 25+ is very very good

^---- This... Mine are off the wall kind of, some reason I freak out at 20 or less...

i also begin to get nervous at 20 or less.. the more chips the merrier

I found this to be helpful during play but it would need to be modified for deep stack. It is a nice guide as to where your chip stack should be at a given level of play and allows you to include players from 9 down to 2 at the table. This adjusts for what they call effective M

http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/mzone.html

Is this as easy as doubling the numbers it produces? If so then this should be all you need.

That's kind of nice to have kmixer.

This ^ is 'NOT' true. .. & 'it depends', lol.

There's no such thing as a 'good' 'bad' or 'indifferent' M value. Your 'M' just dictates what hands you should be playing, & how you should be thinking about playing them.

Do you guys play tournament poker? (because it really doesn't sound like it)

i play tournament poker PO..not often..but i play

M=20 at early levels, I'm fine, deep into a tourney after I've invested 5+ hours of time in the tourney M=20 looks a little grim to me.

Same here, grim, but not completely devastating since the blinds are so large.

Cool, glad i was able to provide something useful. I only just found it but I used it on two SnGs that I played the other day and it really helped keep me focused on where I was in relation to where I should be for that level.

I wonder how hard this would be to make as a "stand alone" in Open Office? I might try that later, and if I do I'll post it on here for you all to have.

oh..
I know if it drops below 10, your going to get called on any shove.
The last 5 CC games i went card dead, i let my M drop to a 5, that was not a great thing to do.
I can deal with an M of 20, but i start to flip-out when it hits 10...
Maybe i should be shoving at 20, more chips = less calling....

Harrington rears his ugly head again. An M below 30 is bad. If your down to 10 then your chance of survival is completely out of your hands and you should be call or shoving with nearly any 2 cards. At this point you need one thing only, LUCK!

M is the total cost of playing 1 orbit and is defined as bb+sb+Antes. M is totaly dependant on tournament structure and has little meaning unless you include the size of the antes and the rate at which the blinds increase. It doesn't mean you'll get to play 10 more rounds or even 10 more hands.

Most tournament players these days prefer to assess their health in terms of bb's (Big Blinds not Big Bets) as it relates more closely to the actual cost of playing a hand. A typical raise in the late stages of a tournament will be in the 2.5 to 3 bb range (4 BB's is considered an overbet and is usually indicative of hands that are likely to be problematic post flop like high pairs or 2 high cards). That said, if you bet and plan to CB on the flop the cost of playing 1 hand is going to be in the 6-8 bb range. If you started with a stack size of just 20 bb's, you're going to have to be prepared to invest a minimum of 1/3 of your stack, and that's if you get no post flop action. If you do see any action you may find yourself pot committed with any piece of the flop or strong draw. That's why even 20bb's deep your best option may be to open shove with any playable hand.

30bb's is far from optimal but at least you have the option of getting away from a bad situation. However, just getting involved in a hand that turns sour drops you down into the danger zone.

At 40bb's your sitting pretty and have all your tools at your disposal. You can raise, 3 bet, chase draws, play speculative hands like suited connectors and small pairs or just sit back and wait for premiums.

Wow 4Dog, you really don't like to lose chips, do ya?

M30 is probably starting to get bad at PokerStars, or maybe even FT, but at UB, the Chip leader in most tournaments is lucky to have M35. There just isn't enough players at UB to make it possible.

lol. Nobody does, but you're right. I hate to play with a short stack and I'm very likey to take chances which might seem unreasonable when my stack drops below 30bb's. Just winning my buy-in back doesn't have much appeal. Consequently my ITM% is pretty low but my ROI is around 20% in mtt's. I have alot of high finishes and alot of bubbles.

But I'm not sure how M (or stack size) relates to what site you play at.
Sure Stars and Tilt have tournaments with thousands of players, but how you approach a situation in a tournament should be based on how many fully functional hands you can play which is a function of stack size, not how big the starting field was.

If you haven;t already attempted this there is a much easier way. From firefox just save the HTML into a new folder, you can then open this whhn offline in a seperate browser and even resize it to sit next to your table if you want to.

I assume the offline part is the reason you wanted it in OO?

Yes, that was the reason. And thanks again... I forgot about being able to use offline.

With an M of 15 or lower I revert to a short stack strategy, and anything higher than 25 I would say you can play somewhat tight. But as you get deepstacked, the dynamics dramatically change in your m zone. For one, you can't make moves which are not considered too risky in the begining stages of the game in the late stages because for the simple fact your deepstacked and any mistake might cost you your stack. To play comfortabely TAG deepstacked I would suggest bare min. 50 +, and if you have several LAG's at your table you should lean toward 75+, to handle swings and to have enough chips to allow you some fold equity.

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lol jk!!!

lol same thing?

nice post though four dogs.

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Ok i really have to read Harrington's books, if i can find the cd that has then on it..
Thanks, i will keep this in my mind, the next game i play....

In tournaments I hate reaching 20bb's, you're virtually committed to every pot you play because if you don't win it you're in trouble.

If you think about cash game play, SS'ers play 20bb stacks with a shove or fold mentality because it's the correct way to play that size stack. I know there are other factors involved in tournament play but it shows that 20bb's is a trouble situation and should be played aggressively, not as the safe zone some are saying it is.

EDIT: Oh and if Harrington says it then you don't need to listen to me, he knows his stuff better than most people on the planet.

Not a completely bad way to put it, lucky!

Hey DG I found another cool M calculator that i am gonna play around with in addition to that one that we got off that website.

Here is a video of it in action.

YouTube- QMCalculator

It's a little more work but the ability to manually add numbers into these fields should make it more accurate and also good for starting chip stack which relates more back towards the topic of this thread.

Kmixer, you must know I'm a gadget guy. I have a feeling I'm gonna have more M calculators than I have poker clients in a few weeks! LOL

But thanks... I like that one.