ICM paradox?
Hello Im a cash pro transitioning to Tournaments this last few months. Im trying to understand ICM using risk premium concepts. The idea is that stack collision has -EV and can be understood as an extra %eq needed to make a play. So getting all in mid stack vs mid stack is bad to the tune of about 15%. Thus to make a hero call, you would need an extra 15% equity vs whatever equity you would need at 0chipEV. I believe i understand that part.
My confusion is this:
suppose 2 mid stacks and battling. They both have a 15% risk premium because neither wants to bust.
Player A is incentivized to bluff less.
Player B is incentivized to bluff catch less.
But if player B is incentivized to bluff catch less, then isnt player A incentivized to bluff more?
and if player A is incentivized to bluff more then isnt player B incentivized to bluff catch more?
and then isnt the equilibrium just both of them playing like its ChipEV?
3 Replies
No, the advantage lies with the first person to commit. If you can gen your chips in the middle first, you will have better than expected ev. The person who has to call off can call, and cost both of you money. You can play around with ICM calculators and see that this is true.
I think you jumped from the premise to not quite the right conclusion here:
suppose 2 mid stacks and battling. They both have a 15% risk premium because neither wants to bust.
Player A is incentivized to bluff less.
The real incentive is not to get their stacks in the middle unless they have the nuts. Postflop, this means smaller bet sizes and tighter value betting ranges, not necessarily fewer bluffs. You prefer to pick up pots without showdown, and you want to keep the pot small even as you want to get value.
As 3for3 said, you can leverage jamming because the other player has to call off so much tighter than pure chip EV. However, you usually see this preflop, where it's less likely you'll accidentally do something like jam top pair into a set. But postflop, smaller bet sizings can also be used to set up bet/bet/shove lines even as a bluff. In fact, this may work more often than at chip EV because those calling chips become more valuable. So a player that might call turn and fold to a river shove for chip EV may just fold the turn here, because they know they're not going to put any more in on the river, a river jam seems likely, and they would rather hang on to those chips.
Makes sense I like it
