M-ratio
The M-ratio is a term that is considered as the health of the chip stack that a player has, as a function of the cost to play each hand or round. What this basically refers to is that depending on the value of the M-ratio, a player can have the freedom to play freely or be forced to play tightly.
A player can sit without making a move throughout the game, making just compulsory bets for a certain number of laps of the dealer button before s/he is finally forced to the leave the game after finishing her/his chips. M is the number of laps of the dealer button that player can do, before being forced out of the game due to no chips.
The M-ratio is calculated as equal to the stack that a player has, divided by the sum of the small and big blinds, as well as all the antes that are included in the game.
Therefore, in a $5/$10 game, where the antes are $1 with 8 people playing, then a player with a stack of $100 has an M-ratio value equal to 4.3. This means that if the person just pays the ante and the compulsory blinds, then s/he can only last above 4 rounds in the game.
The concept of M-ratio is only valid in the case of tournament plays wherein it remains true to the value of the chips in the stack and cannot be manipulated by outside influences. Influencing the stack by buying more chips causes manipulation in the stack value and that means that the M-value doesn’t follow the pattern set by the on-table game-play and is constantly manipulated.
Many famous players have come up with applications of the M-ratio wherein they use the value of the M-ratio to determine how the player’s playing style probably is. For e.g. a player with an M-ratio that’s greater than, or equal to, 20 is in a situation that s/he wants to be in. They can play conservatively or aggressively depending on their choice and are unlikely to be hassled by the other players or even bullied.
Similarly, a player with an extremely low M-ratio, say less than one, is probably on the last legs of her/his game of poker and in all likelihood, luck notwithstanding, will be eliminated from the game soon.
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