This is a concept discussed by “Action” Dan Harrington in his book Harrington on Hold ‘em Vol. 2 (a book which I will be reviewing soon) and it relates specifically to tournament play.

M (given the name “M” by Paul Magriel) is a modification of the big blind system to determine your standing in the tournament. M tells you number of rounds of the table you can survive before being blinded off (assuming you don’t play any pots). As your M drops, you’ll have to step up the aggression… what was surprising to me was where you have to start considering making some moves.

To determine your M is rather simple. Take your chip count and divide it by the total starting pot size. For instance, you have 20,000 in chips and the starting pot size is 850 (200 small blind, 400 big blind, 25 ante)… in this instance, your M is about 23. Very healthy.

Anything above 20 M allows you a lot of room. You can play just about any style and switch it up on a dime. This what Harrington calls the Green Zone. You can put a devastating hurt or put your opponents in for all their chips. You are a force at the table and can take risk to stay there.

10 - 20 M is what Harrington calls the Yellow Zone. In this area, you lose the ability to play a lot of conservative styles. You have to open up a bit and get a little more aggressive while you’re still able to put a crippling hurt to your opponents.

With an M of 6 - 10 you’re in what Harrington calls the Orange Zone. At this point, alarm bells should be going off in your head. You lose the ability to make complex moves that require a big chip stack to succeed. Many of these types of moves will require you to move all-in, putting you at risk… the catch-22 to this though is that with this short a stack, you have to become even more aggressive.

In the Red Zone is an M of 1 - 5. Here you’re pretty much all-in or nothing. To make a move here, anything other than all-in will be giving such good odds that an opponent could pretty much all with any hand. Going all-in gives you one more way to win the pot, by having the table fold to you.

The last zone is called the Dead Zone. Here you’re pretty much down to felt. You have less than a blind. You’re alive, but will get called by anything just to get rid of you. You’ve got a chip and chair, but you’ll have to double up a few times to even be a force in the game.

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