who cares about M

[Lloyd]

I have found the "M" concept to be incredibly useful in developing a framework for deciding which hands to play at various stages of a tournament, and the manner in which they should be played. Most people talk about "M" only in terms of the pre-flop all-in. But Harrington goes beyond just that decision in addressing when you should play speculative hands like suited connectors and small pairs.

"M" is far superior to the xBB "rule" for two reasons. One, it takes into consideration antes. Two, by using his modified "M" it is a better framework for shorthanded play when you're paying the blinds much more quickly and have to be even more aggressive then at a full table.

The problem that I see in how "M" was presented was the "Zone" concept. It looks great. It sounds great. But it creates this artifical boundary of what you should do in the Red Zone vs. the Orange Zone, etc. From the beginning I've thought about "M" in a continuum sense. As my "M" goes from high to low, my default way of playing certain hands change. I might play a hand the same way if my "M" is a 4 or 5, but not a 9, even though 5 and 9 are in the same "zone". I'm sure most people here understand this point but that many readers outside of the forum take the zones too literally.

Of course, there are other things we need to consider in our decisions like the stacks, aggressiveness, and looseness of players left to act (in addition to how we are perceived at the time). And I think those factors are what sway us when we are at an "M" where the decision is close as to how to play the hand. And that's the difference between an average player and an above average player - intuitively knowing how to play hands where there is a close decision.

If a beginning player did nothing but take "M" literally, he would be far ahead of most of his competitors. In that sense, "M" was a wonderful contribution to poker theory. And here on the MTT forum, we extend that to the fine subtleties that are included in HOH but often glanced over or misunderstood, and with the addition of all the other knowledge and wisdom we have accumulated hopefully take our game to an even greater level.