Welcome to ICM Hell

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).

Yeah, that's probably about right. Maybe even 25 if she's aggressive and not at a significant chip advantage over anyone else. It's really a combination of several factors that lead me to fold here:

1)The size of the jam-- 34BB is massive and there really shouldn't be any jams at this size.
2)Player profile-- I think most seniors, and leaning toward more so a woman, would be leaning to the tight/top of range jam more than jamming marginal or possibly dominated hands. I'd lean to them playing more conservatively and not risking their "tournament life."
3)ICM Factors, more than one:
3a)Our own-- we go from 2nd place to 8 of 8 and half of 7th if we lose.
3b)SB's-- Even if she's not aware of ICM, she probably gets that she has a lot of chips now relative to the table, and putting them at risk on a bluff or potentially dominated hand would be a disaster.
3c)Future game-- We can make a lot of money at this table just folding and letting everyone else make ICM mistakes.

Anyway, my summary of all of the above is that between 1, 2, and 3b, I think SB's range is going to be super tight, like big pairs.

3a, we need 59% to call, and we're not getting close to that. Against TT+, AQs+, AKo we're 42.87%. We're calling 32BB to win 38BB, so that's not even +cEV-- we need 45.7% at chip EV to call such a big shove. Against those big pairs TT-QQ, you know, our "flip" is really only 43%.

Even 88+ AQ+ we're 48.25%.
66+, ATs+, AJo+, KQs we're only 52.72%.
I couldn't even get to 59% with 55+,A8s+,A5s-A4s,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,A5o,KQo.

So they've have to be shoving incredibly wide for this to be correct by ICM. Like, most of their Ax hands.

All that put together says to me that this is a losing call, and then we get to 3c, the future game. If the table is ICM clueless, then we stand to make a lot of money just letting everyone else make mistakes and waiting to get our money in good, but we blow that opportunity if we lose this hand. And as long as we lose this hand at least 40% of the time, it's definitely not a good call.

Even against this shoving range, the only hands that can profitably call are JJ+, AKs.

I folded AK off yesterday in a 70.00 tournament. Played next to a lady all tournament, she raised once preflop. We get 7 handed with two tables to go and the village idiot moves into the seat next to her. Action- he shove 13bbs utg, she reshoves 27bbs. I act next with 50bbs and fold. She has 99, village idiot has k9 and spikes a k to win.

Two hands later an OMC who wasnÂ’t paying attention tank folds to her all in shove from the bb, he showed her AK. She had AA. I told her the only difference between the OMC and me was that he took much longer to make his decision.

I think the thing you're leaving out of your analysis is that her range is most likely capped. Do you really think she's shoving 34 BB with aces and kings? It's possible but that would be a horrible play.

exactly it wouldnt be too great to jam KK here

the question that has really been asked here is

• how credible is the assumption that this jamming range is horribly (exploitably) populated
  

this spot is tough

but it's really not tough decision-wise. With some clarity on ranges, and decisions are pretty easy.

With some commitment to an assumption with lots of volatility in the result, I think decisions are pretty easy.

it's totally just assumption-tough

• Very low credibility
  
• Probably no quantifiable 100% right answer.
  
• Tons of great jams to be had--how far from great is this person?
  
• Villain's personal characteristics may or may not be relevant who knows. Some wild cig smoking biker broad might be slinging here, grandma betty might not, plenty of gambly old ladies who'll lose thousands on slots. Why not poker? Who knows?
  
• Gotta get creative to answer this one. Any experience could be better than no experience. Similar MTT hands? Cash hands?
  

This is a presumably low-stakes Seniors tournament at the Venetian. Yes, I absolutely do think this kind of player will just shove AA/KK here.

I would have to differ to the OP's read. He was there and saw how she was playing.

I think the stakes are relevant too. I was assuming it was probably like a $500 or 1k buy-in, which is more like mid-stakes and would typically imply that most opponents have some degree of experience.

It all comes down to the range you assign to your opponent but in my mind if you're folding AK here it's a pretty big exploit, and not standard.

Well, if it all comes down to the range you assign your opponent, give me a range for a 34BB shove at a final table that makes AKo a profitable call.

It was indeed a $400; Villain is a reg who has ~600K Hendon, so no stranger to FTs.

Yes folding AKo is an exploit, but I think it was ok (though obviously not a slam dunk, as the discussion shows)

Hmm. Definitely different if villain is actually competent, but at the same time... there just shouldn't be shoves at that size from a competent player. Maybe AQ but the thing is you're still not getting the right odds to call with ICM even if the shoving range is as wide as 66-QQ, ATs+, AJo+,KQs.

Even if she isn't, taking out AA/KK only adds like 2.5% to our equity because we block half the combos. When you need to get to 59% and you're at 47% or whatever with AA/KK in villain's range, that's not going to do it.

Anyway, I would suspect a shoving range here is almost entirely pairs and AK, which isn't a spot we want to put ourselves in at this stage.

I'm not arguing that AKo is necessarily a bad fold. Against a nit in a seniors event a fold is certainly reasonable. I'm just saying that you should consider that their range may be capped in your analysis. Even a nitty senior usually intuitively knows you don't want to chase your opponent out of the pot when you have AA.

Did you see the HRC charts I posted on the first page? A solver shoves about 6% of hands, and it's all mid strength hands like middle pairs and Ax hands. The solver 3-bets smaller with big pairs, so their shove range is effectively capped. Not that I think the opponent in this hand would play the solver range, but I would expect that they might 3-bet smaller with their absolute strongest hands.

Also, I think your conclusion that you need 59% equity to call when you only need 48% to call for chip ev might be flawed. That would mean your risk premium was something like 11%. In my experience that number looks high considering you won't be eliminated from the tournament if you call and lose.

I think a reasonably tight range to assign might be something like this:

I gave her 66-JJ at 100% frequency, 1/2 of QQ assuming she'll 3-bet it small at some frequency, all AK combos, AQs and 1/2 of AQo and AJs combos.

Against this range we're a favorite, but it's still a fold with ICM.

If you start assigning her many more Ax combos then it will turn into a call though. I think that's really the question we need to ask ourselves. How many worse Ax combos will she shove.

In 2024 I don't think it's completely outside the realm of possibility that she could even be shoving hands like A5s and ATo.

If she's shoving something like this:

Now we're getting close to 60% equity and should call:

On balance I like the fold, but think it's a little closer than you might consider it. We need to stay mindful that we're opening ourselves up to exploitation by making these kinds of folds. Even if she won't exploit us we don't want other players on the table to start targeting us with super-wide shoves because they think we're weak-tight.

I suspect she might 3-bet smaller with AA/KK too, but that doesn't add enough to our equity to make the call here. Like you said in your other post, you have to have her shoving a pretty wide raise of Ax/Kx hands specifically to add enough to our equity to justify a call, and I'm just not sure 3rd place in a $400 seniors tournament is shoving A5s or ATo for 34BB over a button raise.

(Even if we've established she's a long-time player, if she doesn't know you understand ICM, she probably shouldn't expect AK to fold here. And if OP's read on the rest of the table not being very ICM-aware is true, that's even less reason for her to put all her chips at risk, and someone with 600k in cashes is presumably observant enough to notice that. In short, all roads for a player profile lead me to think this is a pretty tight range.)

Not my calculation, but OP's:

I don't have the payout info so I can't confirm those calcs, but they make sense to me when we look at stack sizes:

50BB
45BB (us)
34BB (SB)
20-25BB
20-25BB
20-25BB
20-25BB
20-25BB

If we win, yeah, we go to 90BB and have a nice lead. But losing drops us from 2nd to 8th, and with about half of what 7th has. We go from having a good chance to finish top-3 to being a favorite to finish 8th. I'm not surprised at all that we need substantial equity to make that call there. And if those 20-25BB stacks aren't very ICM-conscious, then our future-game loss makes this shove even worse.

I mean, again, I fall back on playing the opponent at the table, not the theoretical optimal opponent. Only two players have a big enough stack to make you really consider this fold, so I'm not too worried about exploitation. And more importantly, they don't know you're raise-folding AK here-- it just looks like a standard wide button open, fold to a shove. If I was getting jammed on really frequently, I'd make adjustments to my opening and calling ranges, but all we have here is one hand that won't look out of the ordinary to anyone else at the table.

Just remember in theory we're supposed to be calling with ATs and AJo (per HRC sim I posted on page one). So if we're wrong and she's shoving a more optimal range we're giving up a ton of EV. This is a large deviation.

I'm with you on the fold here but if she did anything on the table that made me think she was more studied or just loose in general then I would call due to the wide formation.

But that sim isn't with the ICM effects, right? I imagine that would change the shoving range as well, let alone the calling range. I'm not saying we fold this in hour two of the tournament.

I mean, that shoving range has QJs, Q9s, K4s in it. I don't think we're seeing someone shove 34BB with those hands at a final table. I'm also less worried about them having bluffs like that in general for balance given the FT/ICM situation and this stack depth. 34BB is a lot.

No the sim does take ICM into account. I entered the stack sizes and used a standard payout distribution. I can't remember if I ran that one as FGS (future game simulation) or ICM. FGS is just a modified version of ICM that takes into account some future actions.

ICM is why she theoretically wants to shove some of those hands. You put a ton a pressure on your opponent and they have to play extremely tight, whereas if you 3-bet small they can shove on you and put you in the ICM blender.

Gotcha, thanks. I just think in reality, you're not gonna see shoves with those bluff hands or probably even with a range this wide unless you're playing against some elite players.

Yes, we won't be eliminated, but we will get crippled. The 11% number seems about right to me. Other than the bubble, and satellites, early at the FT is the heaviest risk premium in tournament poker.

TBH I think there's relatively light pressure being exerted on the opening strat. Probably something like 5Xs, 8Xo, all the suited kings and queens, K7o+ will be unexploitable here. Fairly close to chip EV.

I don't think there's too much pressure being exerted on the jamming strategy either. That old man's wisdom about betting wider than you can call and whatnot. Pairs, aces suited broadways--all pretty standard stuff under cEV. You'll get some distortions but it probably wont be too crazy yet. Like instead of strategies where you jam K2s and A2o because blocking Ax is totally paramount--here the nash jamming range is probably somewhere between that crazy ICM-distorted strat and the cEV strat. Closer to the latter than the former I think.

If this person is jamming, for example, QJs here it means at least one of these things, if not both:

• Don't judge a book by its cover. A valuable lesson. Hey maybe there are some skilled grandmas out there. I don't think I've ever seen one, but it's a big world out there. Certainly you've got plenty of degen old people and there's really a fine, nebulous line between sicko and degen.
  
• It's actually not an advanced move to jam QJs
  

I think you missed a quid pro quo opportunity with the old "show if I fold" move.

• If you think she's trying to exploit you then it's hard to justify ever folding. If the read is truly that flaky, then it's worth it to consider exchanging that information on that basis that you'll gain more than others will from learning about each other strategies.
  
• If you think she's never trying to exploit you then who really cares even if you show her your cards. She probably wont adjust in the future, either, in that case.
  

I think even seeing once that she can have non-nutted stuff here would have been worth a ton, more than you maybe give up (there's a chance you give up 0ev) even by showing your cards.

There's also a factor that the grandma might have been playing 15-20bb stack for so long, that she has not really adjusted to the fact she doubled up her stack and now has 30+bb, hence the oversized shove.

I don't think this is a thing. She knows she's got heaps of chips (she was literally still stacking them, so she may not know exactly how many she has).

Also note, she did not jam in a squeeze spot with AJo and 15 BBs on the previous hand.