  We discuss different aspects of the quark mass dependence of the chiral and
deconfinement transitions. We make predictions for locating the deconfining
critical point, by analyzing the $m_q$ dependence of the ratio of imaginary and
real mass of the Polyakov loop. We then present an effective theory that allows
the extraction of coupling constants from available lattice data for the
temperature dependence of the chiral and Polyakov loop condensates at different
quark masses.
