Part: Part Nine - Inflection Points: M, Q & the Zones

Computing your M

Pre-flop
Blinds 400 / 800 (100 ante)Pot 2,100 (2.6 BB)COK♦Q♠● 14,700 (18.4 BB)YOU14,700 chipsSB● 16,000 (20 BB)posts 400 (0.5 BB)BB● 16,000 (20 BB)posts 800 (1 BB)D

Blinds are 400/800 with a 100 ante and nine players. Your stack is 14,700. Folded to you on the cutoff.

What is your M, and which zone are you in?

WhyAdd up what one full lap costs you: 400 + 800 + nine antes of 100, which is 900 - 2,100 in all. Divide your 14,700 by that and you land on 7.0, the Orange zone: seven folds from the felt. Leave the antes out and you'd badly overrate the stack.
What happensM = 7. You're in the Orange zone, with roughly seven orbits of folding before you blind out.
The antes are the trap in this calculation. Nine 100-antes nearly double the per-orbit cost here, dragging a stack that looks healthy down to an M of 7. Always fold the antes into the denominator.

Your M counts orbits of survival: your stack divided by everything you pay per lap - small blind, big blind, and every ante on the table.