PA and Harrington

[splashpot]

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M is the total size of the prebet pot (SB + BB + Ante) divided by your stack size. This gives you a relative position to the rest of the people at your table as well as a realistic count of the number of hands you have before the blinds cripple you. Its basically a measure of tournament health.

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OK. And Q...??

//M

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BTW, he's wrong. M is your stack size divided by (blinds+antes). Not the other way around. Q is your stack divided by the average stack. It gives you an idea of your standing relative to the rest of the table.

OK. Thanks.
// M

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I could do this easily. It's just as easy as looking at the number PokerAce would give you. Seriously, how hard is it to look at the blind size, then compare it to the stack size?

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Its not particularly complicated... until you have a short table with antes and big stacks making for a lot of quick math - especially if we talk about effective M which then requires you to divide by the number of people at the table. Im not saying that I cant do it, im just saying that a utility that has it on the screen already would be handy.

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M is the total size of the prebet pot (SB + BB + Ante) divided by your stack size. This gives you a relative position to the rest of the people at your table as well as a realistic count of the number of hands you have before the blinds cripple you. Its basically a measure of tournament health.

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OK. And Q...??

//M

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BTW, he's wrong. M is your stack size divided by (blinds+antes). Not the other way around. Q is your stack divided by the average stack. It gives you an idea of your standing relative to the rest of the table.

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Yes - my bad. I wrote out my division wrong.

BUMP. The answer to this post would be inredibly helpful.

[PokerAce]

Do a search for "pot odds" on my forum. I've already explained there (and here, a good while ago) my feelings on this.

[tshak]

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M and Q calculations are simple division. If you can't do that in your head, you shouldn't be playing.

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I think this is an unfair statement. Believe it or not, simple division and addition is actually hard for most people to do quickly. Calculating 9-10 M's (assuming single table) within 5 seconds is virtually impossible for the vast majority of players. This would be a great feature for software like PokerAce.

I do not think a feature like this would be against any TOS and if it was I would say that's very unreasonable. Sites already give you the average stack size so you're 90% the way there with Q. All of the information you need is available to you and I don't see this as any different than popping open the calculator and running some numbers really quick. If a program like Texas Calculatem can calculate odds based on fold depth *and* give you recommendations, I don't see how any poker site would have a problem with the assitance with trivial arithmetic like pot odds, M, and Q.

[TexBigSlick]

First, I am a big supporter of Pokerace's stance on keeping PA HUD well within the boundaries of the Ts & Cs of the sites. My take on the situation would be that if you could calculate M from hand history data only (and I don't know if you can) it should be "legal". If, however, you have to do any screen scraps to get players' stack sizes, that would be illegal.

I would agree that, if legal, this would be a natural and awesome addition to PA HUD for tournaments.

Rob (TexBigSlick)

[MidnightToker]

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I think this is an unfair statement. Believe it or not, simple division and addition is actually hard for most people to do quickly. Calculating 9-10 M's (assuming single table) within 5 seconds is virtually impossible for the vast majority of players. This would be a great feature for software like PokerAce.


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Calculating 10 Ms that quick might be impossible for most people, but then you have no reason to. Just calculate your own, and then estimate the others based on their stack sizes compared to yours. Have an M of 5 and an opponent with twice the stack size? That's an M of 10 for him.

And it's not like you need to be aware of the exact M of everyone at all times. You don't need to spend a minute figuring out that someone has an M of 12.5 if you can figure out that he's above 10 but below 15, and it's not all that hard. Plus there's the fact that you only have to do it once and then just keep track of it, you don't need to calculate it every round.

Added to all that, you won't ever get quicker at estimating these with a helper program, and you don't get to use that live. It's a good practice to just do it in your head.

But maybe I'm missing something. After all, don't helper programs often give you your pot odds? You should be able to calculate that on your own too, after all...

[deepdowntruth]

I use a spreadsheet to keep it straight. I just quickly enter my opponents' stacks and out the Ms and Qs, and other info, spit.