On the Topic of M vs Effective M and relevance to SNGs...

[Nicholasp27]

in HOH2, he talks about M and effective M:

M=S/P where S = your stack and P = sum of blinds(and antes)

so if the blinds are 50/100 and your stack is 4000, then instead of saying you have 10xBB, you'd say M=4000/150=26.667

of course, that's at a 10-handed table

he says that if you are at a shorter table, just multiply by the percentage full, so if down to 4 people, you'd have 26.667 * .4 = 10.67 M


of course, that's 50/100 blinds

when blinds are 100/200, your m is 5.33
when blinds are 200/400, your m is 2.67


now, he says the red zone starts at M=5, so if you use effective M, then on the bubble in a SNG, your M is 5.33, dangerously close to the red zone, even though you have 1/2 the chips in the tournament!

someone with 1000 chips has an M of 1.3


my question is if it makes sense to use effective M instead of regular M, or a modified effective M in SNGs...

if you have 7500 chips with 4 left, but the blinds are 200/400, your effective M is 5, or right on red zone...but are you really in that much danger with 7500 chips and 4 left?


to stay out of the red zone on the bubble, you have to have the following chip stacks at the following level:

50/100: 1875
75/150: 2813
100/200: 3750
200/400: 7500
300/600: 11250

question 1: is this really reasonable or should we adjust this for sngs?

question 2: should we factor in the % of hands played on current level and then factor in future level blinds in the sngs since we know they change every 10 hands, not every so many minutes? would this maybe give us a more accurate formula for how long we can last and therefore how soon we should become how desperate and start pushing any 2, or any top 50% when first in pot, etc? cause if you are on hand 10 of a level, your M is going to drop by a significant amount the next hand and then more 10 hands later, etc