The M Ratio

I think I've touched on this concept before, but I want to give it a name, a number, and make it easy for Tiffany to follow along with how I'm doing in the poker tournament :)

But first, a word from Hacker. He says that if you want to easily follow the blog via e-mail, go here:

http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/03/follow-by-email-gadget-easy-way-to-add.html

Now, back to poker. 

The M Ratio is a number that will basically tell you how I am doing compared to the pace of the tournament... other people may have more or less chips than me, but my number one concern needs to be keeping up with the pace of the tournament. Which, thankfully, is very slow for the Main Event. 

If I have a M Ratio of greater than 10, I'm doing great. The higher the better, but ultimately I need my M Ratio to be higher than 10. 

If my M Ratio drops to 10 or below, I'm entering the danger zone. 

One my M Ratio hits 5, I will shove all my chips in with any two cards and have a 30 - 35% chance of winning and coming back. 

So, for anyone that doesn't want to keep track of blind levels, chip counts, or anything else - my M Ratio will tell you how I'm doing. 

So what is the M Ratio? Well, it's simply the number of times around the table I have chips for, accounting for blinds and antes. It was publicized as part of a successful poker strategy by Dan Harrington, and Russo has been pushing me to pay more attention to it. 

So if blinds are 2,000/1,000/100, then I am paying a $100 ante every 9 hands, a $2,000 big blind every 9 hands, and a $1,000 small blind every 9 hands... or $3,900 every 9 hands. 

If I have $39,000 in chips, I have an M Ratio of 10... I could play 90 hands (10 times around the table) before I ran out of chips. If I had $19,500 in cihps, I would have an M Ratio of 5 and $78,000 chips would give me a M Ratio of 20.

In terms of game play, if I'm over 10, that's easy, I just play. It's when I start getting to 6, 5, 4, etc. that things become tricky - at what point are my chips too low? 

5 is actually a really good number... many players will let their chip stack dwindle to a M Ratio of 2 or 3 waiting for the best possible hand they can shove their chips in on. Shoving on a terrible hand at a M Ratio of 5 is actually a better strategy, even though it's really hard to put your tournament life at stake on a 7 - 2. 

The problem is that if you let your M Ratio get down to a 2, even if you win, you're still in the danger zone. Moreover, with an all in bet and a M Ratio of 2 or 3, you're more likely to get more callers because it's not enough chips to chase people out.. even one caller begins to price other players in. 

If you shove on a M Ratio of 5, even on 7 - 2, then if you win, you're back up to a M Ratio of 10 and can play 40 more hands before the danger zone. And the reality is that if I get called by AK, 7-2 is 50% more likely to win than AQ.  

And against AQ, 7-2 wins 32% of the time... KJ wins 37% - if I get that low, it's not worth losing a round or two's worth of chips (20 - 40% of my remaining stack) trying to pick up an extra 5% chance of winning. Needing a miracle is still needing a miracle - I want to make my miracles count if I get them. 

The key is to be the first person in the pot, which, with a bet of 4 - 5 times the bet, all but guarantees that I'm only getting called by a premium hand, which is less likely to be dealt that round than simply a strong hand. If someone else is in the pot first, then I know they have a strong hand they're attached to and they're already financially committed to the pot making my raise less effective. 

If I have a 50% chance of winning just with my bet because everyone folds, and a 33% chance of winning with my bad hand, I'm going to win almost two thirds of the time with that move... which aren't great odds, but when you have a M Ratio of 5, there's nothing great about anything. 

So that's my strategy heading in - only play premium hands, don't chase or bluff, and keep an eye on my M Ratio... no matter what else is happening, as long as my M Ratio is above 10, I'm doing just fine. 

Thankfully, I head into Round 1 with a M Ratio of 200... I love the WSOP Main Event!!!