In this article, we are going to look at some ICM spots from a recent small stakes MTT final table played on PokerStars.
We will run through how we can double check the decisions we are making are +EV, meaning they are going to make us money in the long run against our opponent’s ranges.
We start the action with us having the chip lead of a $7 Turbo final table we have a big stack with around 41BBs and the average stack being around 12BBs as is pretty typical in these Turbo format games.
The first hand we get with a real decision is 9♦ 9♥ in Mid position facing a 6.5BB all in from a fairly early position of MP1.
Now although we have a strong hand here, we will need a pretty big hand to compete with our opponent’s range and to comfortably want to isolate from our position.
Let’s look at the Re-shoving nash range we should be basing our decisions on…
So as we can see from the big green +2.42 over our hand of 99, this is clearly a +EV play, it’s worth noting though that hands like A8o KT0 33 are all not +EV even against such a short stack all in, whereas if this shove was from a different position these would be clear calls. But these charts are just based upon normal tournament play and don’t take into account payout pressure and ICM implications.
Let’s look at what ICMizer says about this spot, as our Push charts are not taking into account the dynamic of the stacks and payout jumps on the table…
Bottom of our Range!
This is why it’s always worth checking these spots! it turns out that 99 is the absolute bottom of our range and we should even be mucking 88 AQo and AJs from this position even against a 6.5BB all in! Crazy right?
But the difference between looking up the EV of our hand as a pure re-shove against our opponents expected range is that ICMizer takes into account the other short stacks on the table, one of them being just 2BBs.
Therefore this player’s all in range is so narrow that we need a solid hand to compete with this all in.
Would you have folded AQo or 88 to this all in?
As usual with tournament Poker it’s a flip and we are running well enough to make a flush Vs our opponents flopped pair of Ace’s, however, it’s worth noting our equity in the pot…
Poker is a game of small edges, in this pot we have just a smidgen better equity against our opponent, but in the long run, they will show up there with all lower pairs than our hand sometimes we will dominate other holdings like A8s A9s too. So a flip of a coin here is almost the worst we will ever be against such a short stack that is looking to chip up.
That, was a fairly easy spot for most players, who didn’t know to isolate a 6.5BB all in with pocket nines right? Well, let’s move on to a different spot…
3 Handed Re-Jam
So the dynamic in this pot is that the player on the button has been active and already stolen a pot from us in the previous round of play from the button where we defended and gave up on a zero equity flop for our hand, this time they are open raising whilst they are second in chips off a stack of around 14.5BBs, now they can do this fairly wide with steal attempts so we need to have an aggressive re-shoving range to put max pressure on them as they will need the very top of their range to call off and gamble getting third place.
Now, this is a more awkward spot, we have two stacks that need to be concerned with ICM pressure, so to review this spot we are going to look at this in the free ICMizer tool.
The hands we are going to be Re-Jamming with are going to be a little strange to view for some people as A9o is going to be in the muck whereas we can profitably pile all in with Q4s?!
Suited hands are going to make far more valuable all ins for if we are called compared to our off suit combinations of hands.
K9o is very borderline, so we could choose to shove this against some opponents we feel might be on the wider side of opens and fold it against tighter opponents, however KTo+ is going to be a +EV play and as we have KJo we are going to want to put the pressure on our opponent here and get there if they find a part of their range they can call with, Let’s see how it pans out…
Our opponent does have a calling hand and it’s off to the races with our 43.4% equity, luckily for us once again we win the flip hitting an offsuit King on the river to take a huge chip lead into heads up play.
Sum Up
- To get better at the game take a look at some of the spots you played at key points in the tournament, even if you think they are pretty simple, you never know what you could learn.
- Try the ICMizer free trial and run your hand histories through there and learn about ICM spots in detail! You will improve your knowledge on spots and be able to better tackle them next time around
- Although its good to have hand charts for re-shoves, when dealing with payout jumps always factor in how players ranges will differ given the stacks on the table, if someone has 3 players out chipped but they are still moving all in, their range is going to be watertight.
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