I don't know of any cvars that need sm_ in front of them and I've never had such a thing.
OP you should plug one of those other sm_cvars into your console and see if it returns what you have set. If it doesn't you should remove it from everything. I mean really you should anyway.
Example:
either in your terminal or in game console type
Code:
sm_cvar tf_avoidteammates_pushaway
Default is 1 so if it returns 0 I'd say the sm_cvar doesn't have any effect and the problem lies elsewhere.