Aggressiveness at Online Poker Tournaments

Aggressiveness at Online Poker Tournaments

Poker tournaments are a completely different world than ring games. When you are playing a tournament you must consider a whole lot of factors non-existent at ring games and also your aggression factor must change according to your M ratio.
Some books call it M ratio, others M factor and others M number, but we will call it just M. M is a measure of the health of your stack, the more M the more healthy (full) your stack is and the more freedom you have to act.
To calculate your M is very easy, M = Your Stack / (Big blinds + small blinds + (ante*number of players)). This is basically the number of complete big blinds you can survive by folding all hands. For example if your stack is 2500 chips and Big blinds are 100, small blinds are 50 and there is a 10 ante in a 10 player table M = 2500 / (100 + 50 + (10*10)); M = 2500 / 250; M = 10.

According to your M your actions could be:

M > 50: Bullying zone: With such a stack you are probably leading the tournament or one of the higher players in the ranking. You can bully other players if the blinds are juicy by going all in or betting big amounts of money to steal their blinds or bets. Beware, however, not to do it with high stackers like you or your stack will drop dramatically if you make a bad move. Players only accept to go with all their chips if they have a good hand, you must take profit of this with your big stack.

20 ≤ M < 50: Ideal zone: This is the zone where you have more freedom to act, but still not too much to start bullying other players with your stack, just keep playing solidly with your stack and try to make it bigger.
10 ≤ M < 20: Regular zone: You must play tight in this situation and just play good hands. Do not play small pair or small suited connectors, and focus to play really good hands, you still got time to get good pocket cards, so be patient and do not take unnecessary risks.

6 ≤ M < 10: Danger zone: You are in a danger zone and you must be the first betting to steal blinds. Try not to call other players and focus in being the first going all in to get blinds if nobody calls.

1 ≤ M < 6: Critical zone: You can either fold or going all in and do it fast before you run out of chips. Any good hand is ok to go all in here, you are desperate to get blinds. Never limp a pot or call a bet.

M < 1: Dead zone: You are completely depending on your luck to survive in the tournament and there is nothing you can do, just throw your chips, cross your fingers and pray to be lucky.

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