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).
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?
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.
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 cleose 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 no
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.
