An apparatus may include a channel estimation component to determine a channel estimation matrix H for a tone of a multiplicity of tones in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communications signal. The apparatus may further include a processor circuit coupled to the receiver component, and a flow selection component for execution on the processor circuit to calculate a figure of merit for power loss for the received tone based upon the channel estimation matrix, and based upon the calculated figure of merit, perform either a max-log calculation or a maximum likelihood calculation to determine a received signal metric, but not both calculations. Other embodiments are described and claimed.