Welcome to ICM Hell
8 left at a Venetian Seniors. I don't recall the actual payout structure, but assume a standardish one.
Hero is second in chips with 45BB. Main Villain is third with 34BB. There is a 50BB stack, and the rest of the table has 20-25BBs.
The previous hand the Villain flatted in the BB with AJ after a LoJack raise, and cutoff call. She doubled through on an AJT board, all in on flop, and getting the hold vs AQ.
On to the hand...it's a simple one. Folds to hero who min opens with AKo. Villain shoves for 34BB from the small; the BB was one of the aforementioned ~20BB stacks.
Hero?
Then it's a bad call!
ICM isn't some abstract thing. It's literally the way we measure, "what is the gap between a cEV decision and a $EV decision?"
If your goal is to make money and not just win tournaments, that's what you need to follow. If you just want to put as many first-place trophies in your case as you can, then just play chip EV.
As far as the rest of your post... What 65-year-old woman in a seniors tournament is shoving 34 BB with QJs? I think you're making assumptions that would justif
Oh yea no question 64 year old woman is never shoving QJs. Now my question here is what stack size by her is a mandatory call for us? Like 20bb?
When I throw range of 10-10+ AQs +, maybe this isn’t a call. In game, I would snap this bc I think AK is too strong button vs sb. Idc if it’s a seniors event. I don’t cry if we run a flip against QQ. It’s bad no question but I feel if hero wins this pot, they can just tear apart the final table by cbetting close to 100% pots vs 1 villian super small and exploit. Also can just abuse icm as other players are going to tighten up a lot for prize pool jumps. It’s def not icm aware but still I couldn’t fold AK button vs sb. Def taking icm numbers into account- it’s bad and at best we are flipping majority of time and prolly sometimes running into AQ (I wouldn’t put AQ as a 0% hand holding by sb- it’s a good hand to jam sb vs button and likely crushing a button open).
