Time to get it in or ICM fold?
We are early day 2 ITM with 55 players left, around 600 entries of $100k guarantee live tourney. I cam into day two a short stack and haven't seen a flop yet. Hero has 8 bbs and is tied for shortest at table. Tournament has big blind ante format.
OTTH
Tight player with about 30 bbs opens UTG for 2.5 bbs. Aggressive player UTG +1 with about 25 bbs shoves. I act next and look down at AQs. Given the blinds are coming back around, do we need to just go with it? Or can we actually find a fold vs what should be very tight EP ranges? Does UTG +1 have enough TT/JJ in his range here? And we still have to worry about UTG.
Anyhow, I felt I was so short and with blinds coming, this was probably my best opportunity to make the most chips.
15 Replies
fold, their ranges are too strong in these positions, Id get it in if I had like 2 or 3 bigs (and only because UTG will likely fold so it's relative to your stack a lot of dead money in the pot)
This can't get much worse... I have no idea what I would do in the moment. AQ is the hand I get knocked out of tournaments the most with. Often by AK and sometimes KK even AA and QQ. Here at best you are flipping with UTG+1 and for whatever reason tight UTG folds. If UTG calls you will be getting over 2:1 pot odds but still I doubt your actual equity is > 33% at that point. They would both have to have PP's< QQ. Which is possible just not likely.
Since I got knocked out of the WSOP Mini Main and Main event last year with AQ vs AA both times I have come to believe it isn't worth it against tight good players when they overbet their raises. Here they aren't necessarily overbetting, but UTG+1 just jammed for 25 bb's against a tight UTG so best case for you is JJ. I think it is either AK or KK/QQ and I would probably let AQs go. But in the moment I might call because I doubt UTG+1 has AA because they would more likely 3-bet like 3x in order to get a call. Still AK has 67% odds against us and we have no idea what UTG will do...
No ... shove ... and if you loose go get some breakfast.
My first thought was that it's not an ideal spot, but 8 bigs is 8 bigs and AQs is a very strong hand. I'm sure it would be a chip EV call on a chart.
After breaking down the spot a little more though I think it might actually be a fold .
Most likely result is everyone folds including UTG as your action looks really strong. So there's 1 big blind+1 ante + .5 SB + 2.5 BB utg raise + 8 BB your stack + 8 BB matched by shoving player... You're calling 8 BB to win 21 BB. In that case you need just over 38% equity for a chip EV call.
Against the following range you have 39.5% equity. I assumed he always raises smaller with aces and never shoves, and only shoves with kings half of the time. I also assumed he shoves pocket pairs as low as 99 100% of the time:
[image]PcMAaDj.jpg[/im
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So in this scenario you're barely getting the odds for a chip EV call.
However, you've got to adjust for ICM risk premium which is going to make it a fold. You also have to account for the chance that one of the players yet to act, the UTG raiser or the shoving player could just have aces or kings.
So all things considered I think it is likely a fold. Admittedly I probably would have shoved in game.
After breaking it down here's a shorthand way of deciding what to do ...
Is the player who jammed ever doing that with a worse ace? Like AJs? Some player types certainly will. If they are you have to call.
even if UTG1 jammed AJs Id still fold for the good reasons you gave. whole table still to act and UTG with naturally strong UTG range.
If we go with your assumptions [UTG1 not jamming aces, I think that's normally the case], I'd begin consider calling if UTG1 jammed as low AToff (but if he's that wide then he may also have KQs and maybe KQoff, A5s, ... which makes it better and better for us)
and then Id still pray for every other player on the table to fold and not show up with something
even if UTG1 jammed AJs Id still fold for the good reasons you gave. whole table still to act and UTG with naturally strong UTG range. If we go with your assumptions [UTG1 not jamming aces, I think that's normally the case], I'd begin consider calling if UTG1 jammed as low AToff (but if he's that wide then he may also have KQs and maybe KQoff, A5s, ... which makes it better and
My assumption was that if he's shoving AJs he's shoving some other weaker hands too... Maybe pocket pairs as small as 77, AQo, and probably KQs too.
Even against this range (no 77 or KQs) we've got close to 44% equity:
[image]ZAAR0Dr.jpg[/im
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At that point it's got to be close to a call. It's definitely a chip EV call, but I'm not sure what the ICM risk premium is. I would guess it's probably no more than 4 or 5 % since we're already in the money and payouts are generally pretty flat until around the final table.
I could run the ICM hand through HRC, but that wouldn't really tell us anything because it will assume GTO ranges instead of what a human would shove over a tight UTG open.
We've also got to consider future game because more than 1/4 of our stack will evaporate into the blinds in a few hands.
(I dont know your software, does your calculation take the positions (table left to act) and UTG's raise into account?)
it's a live mtt, you can just jam 3 bigs later, and people may not even care and count your chips and fold, or they may not know how to react and act as if you jammed for 10 or 20 bigs if theyre nits anyway. a lot of good things can happen. weve plenty of room to wait and play (it's 8 bigs haha).
someone opens when we're in the big, we just complete with anything decent and outplay him super shortstacked with donkshoves etc postflop if we somehow connect with the board. we limp in the small with 7 bigs and they may think we limped aces (or whatever) and give up to our 1 big blind cbet on the flop.
generally we just want to realise better EV spots than being this marginal +chipEV and not only for ICM reasons but the tourney being soft. Which I think we'll be able to do here on average, even that shallow stacked
(I dont know your software, does your calculation take the positions (table left to act) and UTG's raise into account?)it's a live mtt, you can just jam 3 bigs later, and people may not even care and count your chips and fold, or they may not know how to react and act as if you jammed for 10 or 20 bigs if theyre nits anyway. a lot of good things can happen. weve plenty of room
That was just a straight range vs our hand equity calculation. It's poker cruncher which is like a phone version of poker stove...
HRC is the program I have that takes positions and payout structure into account, but I don't have it on my phone to run it right now.
I'm pretty sure it will say AQs is a GTO call here with less than 10 BB, but that's not accounting for the tight initial raiser and it will likely assume that the second player would reraise small with the top of their range. Pretty much it won't be an accurate representation of what people are actually doing in these spots.
Anyway stakes are likely relevant too. Like in lower stakes players will sometimes fold to a 3 BB shove whereas higher stakes when you get down to 5 or 6 BB you have almost no fold equity (unless you're on stone bubble or high ICM final table spots). Pretty much in low stakes there's more incentive to "wait for a better spot, " whereas higher stakes you need to mostly take any +EV spot you can.
I checked it in gtowiz for 20 and 25 bigs in chipEV and we fold AQoff and AQs, AKoff is bottom of our calling range. It assumes another jamming range for UTG1, he has more 3bets there and some other shoves
We fold for 25 BB or 8 BB? Big difference.
here for 17 bigs, closest situation regards stacks / raising and shoving ranges that I can replicate there.
with the standard UTG GTO opening range (probs wider than from our UTG)
and quite a wide shoving range from UTG1
AQs becomes indifferent between calling and folding for a stack of 17bigs in LJ.
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[image]24KlmTm.png[/im
I would fold. You can open shove with whatever if it is passed to you in mid to late position.
Just in the last Day 2 tournaments I made at Running Aces in Minnesota and Ballys in Colorado I saw a LOT of cheese and poo flinging (the players in Colorado were some of the worst Ive seen anywhere including Florida and Cherokee). I think you're giving these monkeys to much credit. GTOw is a computer vs a computer and it's break even. The best program for figuring these out is icmizer because yoi can adjust ramges. Just don't assume everyone is as smart and studied as you.
Yeah, the ep shove is a little strange. You are getting pot odds if the original raiser folds. The shove is unlikely to be QQ+, as he could 3! normally with the appearance of FE. Only AK and QQ+ dominate your hand, but this is going to be AK a lot. I don't mind a call.
@deuce
yeah it's prob really a lot of AK. Then it's also more JJ than QQ, KK or AA [in heavily decreasing frequency toward AA]. but mainly it's AK. I fold
Thanks for the replies. After reading everything, I still think the call I made was correct (although very marginally). My biggest reason is that the two stacks to my left were huge (over 80 bbs) and they would call off very wide after I got down to 5.5 bbs after the blinds came around. Also, we just made a pay jump for $100 and another one wasn't coming for 18 more players, so figured very little ICM here.
I could try to shove before the blinds ... but my feeling is I'd be called. I felt that UTG was probably dead money, and I could build a somewhat playable stack if I won this hand with that dead money and the blinds. But ...
Folds to UTG who tanks and then folds, flipping over another AQs. V turns over his KK. K on flop (had back door flush and straight draws) but couldn't get there. Dead on turn.
