Welcome to ICM Hell

Honestly, especially a seniors event, fold is fine.

I think you'd have to be confident AQ was in their range to call here, and I really doubt that. I'm not even sure AK is here under these circumstances, as much as it makes sense. You're probably looking at JJ+.

There are two factors in play here. On the one hand, I'd expect in a seniors tournament for someone to be jamming that many chips super tight. On the other hand, I find in these rec tournaments they have zero concept of ICM.

But I lean toward the former here, especially since there really shouldn't be any jam 3-bets at this size, and we already know villain didn't squeeze-jam 15BB with AJ. QQ might actually be the borderline decision here.

Part of the above also depends on how you think this player plays. Are they a typical senior player, or do they seem to really know what they're doing?

In either case, though, jamming with a hand you dominate makes very little sense.

Crazy spot.

When somebody 3-bets 34 bb after a min preflop open it is a bad play with a monster (really its a bad play with any hand...)

If Villain had made it 8 bb or even 7 bb that would be fairly standard and close to 25% effective stack. But it means Villain would be OOP in a huge pot if you call. So I'm guessing Villain has QQ. Could even be JJ or KK or even TT but those are much less likely than QQ. In theory Villain could also have AK (which we block) looking to get a fold or getting to see all 5 cards rather than play a hand that would likely have to fold to a flop that was missed.

Given that against QQ its likely a break even spot I would fold in a senior event especially because in the rare cases where it is AA or KK its -EV. I have basically never seen raises like this in any high stakes tournaments and extremely rare in mid stakes tournaments.

In a senior's event, especially facing a female senior, I would expect this range to look exactly like Nath said (JJ+) and even include AA (where sometimes we remove the top of their range assuming they would just 3bet). It's very rare that senior's get too out of line, especially at FTs, and especially the women seniors (unless they're studied which is becoming increasingly more common of course) Without a specific read I think I fold here and call QQ+. In a softer FT where our edge is presumably large, I think we really want to avoid these spots in general and feast on the small pots and leverage our chip stack and the pay jumps. I honestly could see an argument for folding QQ here if we think she has exactly JJ+ AK+, you're going to be dead to rights v KK/AA, flipping AK a lot and then dominating JJ. You could also even argue they aren't jamming JJ at a full frequency here (how many times have you heard an older rec give a diatribe on "how much they hate pocket Jacks"?) Gross spot but find the fold and lean on these medium and short stacks with your chip/skill edge.

Yeah, when I said I think QQ might be the borderline decision, it's because I'm not confident they're shoving JJ / AK at a full frequency, and maybe not ever for 34BB. There's a real chance the range here is QQ+ or even KK+.

Well said, Nath. I think people have a bad habit (I used to struggle with this as well) of getting into spots where our hand's absolute strength is strong and then just saying a platitude like "I can't fold" as opposed to assigning an exact range to villain and then acting accordingly. I also think when that voice inside our head says "I can't fold" or "my hand is too good to fold" etc, it's often our gut interjecting in a spot that is normally a standard call but may be better as a judicious fold.

I did fold in game.

Does anyone else see the problem here? If I fold, Villain can jam with essentially ATC and show a profit. Of course if I know that, then I will be calling much wider.

The real problem here is the nature of tournaments. She can jam very wide because it puts so much pressure on me. But if I then adjust and start calling wider, the rest of the table gets a free ICM boost, and a pretty substantial one at that...it essentially become reverse collusion, or more aptly mutually assured destruction.

And that's why you never tell the table what you folded in spots like this.

Of course I didn't show....but it's not like I snap folded either (who could?).

So, they do know I folded something good..

Yeah, but you play the opponents at the table, not the hypothetical perfectly-optimized opponent who knows what you're doing and is adjusting to exploit it.

I don’t think I would fold this spot. I might be wrong but idk AKo is a great hand and you will run into AQ / maybe AJ once in a while.

What spot did you open? If it’s Hj/cu/button, I think you have to call. Even when you run against qq it’s still a flip. If you win the flip, you have the ability to run over the table with more raises pre and a ton of cbetting super small to really exploit icm.

Idk what position you were but you can’t really hate flipping in this spot. I know most will say it’s icm hell etc but if villian is shoving AQ or AJ even at a small freq, I think it’s a mandatory call. We might even be able to eliminate kk or AA bc who is ripping that hand and not going for value (it’s a seniors event so idk).

It’s a woman it sounds like which yea prolly is going to be a tight range but still don’t think I’m folding this spot. I’m not a icm guru though so folding might be correct honestly.

You absolutely can hate flipping with 8 left at a soft final table where you're second in chips and losing the flip makes you the clear short stack.

I didn't catch the open was from the button, this actually changes my action cause now I think their range widens a bit despite the player types. I think from button or cutoff we call here and probably find fold from other positions.

Regards to the problem with them exploiting us, Nath answered this perfectly, there's a lot of imbalanced stuff we can do to exploit population' tendencies live (especially in a Senior's event) that will not be turned on us due to their lack of knowledge of our adjustment or simply their inability to adjust appropriately even if they did figure it out. There's a lot of spots live that would favor us being imbalanced and people who forego these for the sake of being balanced long term often hurt themselves.

I ran the spot in HRC. This is probably of pretty limited use, but I will post screenshots anyway. It can be helpful to consider what should be happening in theory even if our opponent is playing far differently.

Here's the theoretically-sound shoving range for the SB. As you can see it's capped as hands like aces and kings prefer to 3-bet small.

Here's our calling range vs. that strategy. It's wider than I expected, likely because we're opening 45% of hands on the button and we have the SB covered.

I find myself in these types of situations a lot. If you think you have a big edge on the table it's not very desirable to take such a high variance spot. The problem is better players certainly will notice if you're making folds like this, and will likely exploit these tendencies.

Anyway, just food for thought.

I don't think there is a problem here.

Its a senior tournament so people aren't jamming 34 bb's with bad hands, especially not women. You opened from the BTN so you have a very wide range potentially. I guarantee she is not jamming with Ax hands. Except possibly AK. Maybe AQ but I doubt it. The kind of hands she will be jamming are PP that don't want to see a flop. If it was a guy in his 50's I would say 88+ is possible as well as AJ+ and some AXs. But a woman just doesn't without it being a big PP like JJ+ (possibly TT). Smaller PP's she is just going to call. Not sure what she would do with hands like AJ/AT but I think folding and calling is a lot more likely than jamming.

If it was not a Senior Tournament I would call with AK before I could even think about it.

At Foxwoods once a Chip Leader jammed on the BTN on the bubble and I had like 30 bb's (maybe more it was many years ago) in the SB. I insta called with AK he turned over J7o and knocked me out. I don't remember the buy in but I don't think it was a multi day tourney. So not huge. But in this case she is 3rd in chips and you are 2nd. She is never ever bluffing here.

The thing about worrying what people will think moving forward is that all they can think is you open widish on the BTN. I doubt that this type of jam for over 30 bb's after a BTN open would happen again in this tournament. Especially because Seniors know that you could very easily call the next time it happens.

This is why some people don’t win tournaments. It’s button vs sb. Is AQ or AJ never shoved in this spot? Def is. Kq suited, small pps, can all shoved here. Sure a seniors event- the shove is going to be tighter than normal but AK is too strong here. We can’t fold to a sb jam. AK is top of range- idk why people think they have such a big skill edge? It’s 40bb poker and shorter stacks so honestly it’s 20-30 bb poker. People aren’t always making mistakes big enough where we can profit over 1 mtt. One cooler and we lose.

But this spot- nope please never fold AK vs a sb jam, we run into 66 and lose a flip- who cares. We run into AQ and villian flops a Q- who cares. AK is just too good here to fold. Idc about perceived skill edge- we can run over the final table if we win this hand and exploit icm when other players try to ladder.

Button raise absolutely changes things, sure. If I'd known that I wouldn't have so confidently assigned a tight range. If we think AQ is in there, we can call.

Given the opponents and the tournament, though, I'm still not sure that's the case, especially since we saw a flat with AJ in a spot that was squeezeable and for fewer chips. I'd be more confident against tougher competition, both for having a thinner edge (if any at all) and because they're more likely to shove big aces below AK figuring my opening range would be wide on the button.

I'm just still not that confident our opponent is thinking about our button opening range in this tournament, vs. just "hands I want to jam with." I also suspect, on the other hand, they're not necessarily ICM-cognizant, either, but on balance I don't think they're just ripping in 34BB from the small blind with Ax hands.

And still, we don't want to get into a spot where we're 55-57% likely to be the shortest stack.

I win tournaments just fine. But I also try to make the decision that makes the most money at every point I have a decision, not just "play to win."

If we had payouts as well as stacks, we could actually run an equity calculator on the situation and figure out just how much of an edge we need on the shoving range to call.

I did a quick run through ICMizer.

If I fold, my stack is worth 5641
If I call/lose worth 2867
If I call/win 7573.

So, I am risking 2774 to win 1932. I need to be good 59% of the time.

Of course, there is no way I am close to that, unless Villain is shoving super wide.

Against a range of 88=QQ and AQ+, I win 42.7% of the time, and chop 18.2%. My equity is about 51.8%. It is a little better than that, as we don't pay the ICM penalty when we chop. I guess I could go back and see what my ev for the chops is, but no way it gets anywhere close to the 59% mark.

What about Future game? I will have a huge stack with 7 left, and be able to exert some ICM pressure, at least in theory. In practice, these players tended to be more ICM unaware.

This is more what I mean by our edge than any ability to really "outplay" anyone when a lot of people have 20BB stacks. It's not so much that we can keep finding spots to own people, but that we can just ladder up avoiding big close confrontations and waiting for them to make ICM mistakes.

IDK man I feel like the reason people don't win tournaments is:

-their fundamentals suck
-they don't exploit when there's an opportunity, whatever it takes: folding 100% or 0%; barreling 100% or 0%; etc.
-they're not competitive enough
-they don't play enough tourneys--everyone wins one once in a while, winning a tourney doesn't mean **** tbh and proves nothing

I don't think the people don't win tournaments is because they never fold AK.

Plenty of highly justifiable pure cEV spots where when you look at population data it's very clear that those average 3b strats have AKo in shitty shape and a perfectly justifiable, differentiated fold--not even talking about 35bb ships, like 6bb 3b sizing I mean.

I've seen old farts in cash games rip AA for $1000 over $50 straddle isos. Why not 35bb when they hate actually gambling? i.e. seeing flops

I can't say with any credibility what this person's range is. But this range AKo is even a big loser just from a cEV perspective:

AA:0.25,KK,QQ,JJ:0.25,TT:0.1,AKs:0.75,AKo:0.25,AQ:0.1,AJs:0.1

I'm folding.

But, it's a real nice call if you make it and you're right that it's +$EV. I was guessing before reading responses that most people would fold here and responses seem to imply most would. So I think it'd be differentiated to call here, regardless of the correctness of the decision.

In game, I probably snap call but now that the facts are laid out, I think it's a sigh fold with the read that you have.

I mean icm wise it’s prolly a bad call but I still think I call this spot 100% of the time. If AQ or a zealous AJ is doing this, it’s a good call. Villains can shove super wide and exploit icm here vs a button open- most folks are opening super wide here in button late in a tourny. Flipping isn’t even that bad per se. Fact we see a lot of under pairs and dominate AQ/AJ and maybe some KQs JQs hands make this a call to me. Sure if it’s late in mtt and it’s some old reg that is nittier than hell- prolly a fold. I think most people know a button raise late in tourny when stacks are shallow though is going to jam a little wider than normal.

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 justify your call rather than accurately assessing what your opponent's actual range would be. "Villain can shove super wide and exploit vs. button" - okay, but you're not playing a 50k where everyone is deeply aware of ICM and solver ranges, you're playing a local Vegas seniors tournament. Does that assumption actually hold vs. your opponents, or are you just justifying the decision you want to make?