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  • ICM Decision — Chip Leading at the Final Table

    Posted by taylormaas on January 18, 2022 at 9:21 am

    Hey all, here’s a spot that came up during a run I had a Canterbury Park’s $150 tournament. We are at 7 people left in the tournament. Payout jumps are pretty substantial going forward:

    1st – 5323

    2nd- 3333

    3rd – 2367

    4th – 1676

    5th – 1282

    6th – 1006

    7th – 769

    We are the table chip leader with ~850k in chips.

    Blinds are 15k/30k/30k

    UTG (700k) opens to 100k

    folds to us in the button. (Worth noting, all 3 the players to our right have short stacks 100-250k).

    We have 99 on the Button with both the blinds (SB – 450k, BB 150k) left to act.

    How do we approach this situation? There’s really only one person at the table that can hurt our stack, and they opened to over 3x from UTG. Plus, the 3rd place chip stack is also behind us left to act. 99 is a good hand but seems conflicted between all three options…

    Should we jam? — If we jam, we put ALL the pressure on the UTG player. They do not want to bust right now in 7th place while sitting in 2nd place. BUT, they opened to a large size from UTG. How much of their range would actually fold? Is this turning our hand into a complete bluff, trying to get them to fold hands like JJ/TT/AQ? Because there’s no way they call with worse when we jam. However, it is a prime spot for a bluff/put pressure on them…

    Should we call? — If we call, we will have position in what is shaping out to be a huge pot. How will we react on various boards that have high cards or multiple high cards? This is a passive action to take and is going to involve complicated decisions on later streets.

    Should we fold? — If we fold, we are just waiting and taking a better spot later. But will there be a better spot? This would preserve our stack and avoid confrontation between the other big stack at the table. But is it the play that plays for top 3 rather than for the win? Cause if we win this hand, our likelihood of winning the whole tournament skyrockets… can we pass that up?

    So, RecPoker Nation…. what do you think?

    taylormaas replied 2 years, 2 months ago 7 Members · 20 Replies
  • 20 Replies
  • 7high11

    Member
    January 18, 2022 at 2:21 pm

    My humble opinion, without any analysis to back it up, is that I lean toward a fold on this. The major reason for that is specifically that there are at least two players left with no more than 5 BB, and 2 more that are less than 10 BB, and I want to let them make a mistake before I do. I may be too cautious and end up in third place, but I’ll take third place over 7th. I fully understand an ICM calculation might show me I am “wrong”, but I don’t want to lose 90% of my stack with 99.

    I know this example is not exactly the same because it was a satellite bubble which has the highest possible ICM…but I was in a WSOP main event satellite (first of two levels). Without all the details, I was short with 4 BB. Second largest Stack (36BB open shoved with KK). Big stack called with AA and knocked him out, giving me the last spot. That has definitely informed my attitude toward these spots.

  • misclickdonkey

    Member
    January 18, 2022 at 7:37 pm

    Stand by, I’m going to run this hand in HRC seems like a good one for my ICM bible. I’ll Post the result.

  • misclickdonkey

    Member
    January 18, 2022 at 7:58 pm

    So i ran the hand it has you flatting 9s 100%, the picutures are as follows, openers range then your range, then utg response to your jam. blues are opens/flats and pinks are jams. Hope this helps. Thanks for the addition to the misclickdonkey ICM bible 🙂

    • taylormaas

      Member
      January 20, 2022 at 8:23 am

      Thanks for running this.

      In the moment, I was extremely confident that this was a GTO flat of the 99. However, I was really conflicted due to how I expect my exact opponent to be opening in this spot. Compared to their GTO opening range, I expect them to be much tighter (remove weak A and K hands) and to never have an open shoving range.

      I had barely played with this opponent so I had almost no reads on them (which is why I didn’t include any commentary above). But if we give them a normal live player’s tendencies, I think it’s really fair to assume they will be tighter than GTO.

      So then my mind goes to — if they are tighter, how do we react in this situation? Do we flat as much? less? more? or do we jam on them more? Or do we tighten up our range and fold more?

    • sirgasleak

      Member
      January 23, 2022 at 9:51 am

      I think this UTG range is way too lose. Factoring in the ICM considerations, this guy is raising 3.3x from UTG for about 15% of his stack. Do we really think he’s doing this with A6/A7, K5s-K8s and all that stuff? I don’t.

      • misclickdonkey

        Member
        January 23, 2022 at 5:46 pm

        That is with ICM, Most the time when you run sims youd be surprised at how much the ranges differ from what population thinks is ok.

      • misclickdonkey

        Member
        January 23, 2022 at 5:48 pm

        Also note, i run a lot of these sims and would be playing this range. Most of the more studied players will be. Granted i think you have to make the assumption of what you think your opponent’s range is and make a decision accordingly.

        • sirgasleak

          Member
          January 23, 2022 at 7:32 pm

          This is a live $150 tournament, what % of players there do you think are playing GTO ranges?

          • misclickdonkey

            Member
            January 23, 2022 at 7:47 pm

            For sake of saving an argument. I’ll just go with I’m not sure. But if your assuming that they’re not playing gto and playing very tight. As in only calling with aa kk qq and ak maybe aq. You can at that point profitably jam almost any 2 cards because of the fact they’ll be folding almost every time.

            • sirgasleak

              Member
              January 24, 2022 at 12:53 pm

              Assuming they’re opening much wider than they’re calling. But I’m questioning whether the $150 live tourney population is opening anywhere close to GTO in this spot. I would be curious to see the solver analysis if you give the raiser a tighter opening range.

            • taylormaas

              Member
              January 24, 2022 at 7:33 pm

              This is exactly why I posted this hand. I was 99% sure I knew what the GTO answer was going to be. However, exploiting is an important deviation to be making especially in these types of live tournaments. But what I didn’t know here was: How do we potentially exploit in this spot?

              We assume (and almost certainly correctly assume) that our opponent is playing tighter than GTO. But, what does our exploit change to do when our opponent is playing tighter? Although they are opening wider, compared to the GTO answer to a jam, I think they will be calling correctly in this spot (QQ+/AK). So I think our exploit is to jam less than we normally would (and this is where I’m not sure on this). And then when we jam less, do we call more AND fold more? And then where would 99 fall into these respective ranges?

              This ended up being a hand I really was thinking about how we want to have our range look in this exact spot. Because we are in such a weird ICM spot that wants us to do a bunch of things and we are conflicted between all of them. As chip leader we want to be more aggressive, but we won’t want to be aggressive vs another big stack. And with all the ladders and short chips stacks around, we want to apply pressure to others, but not in any situation that would risk our lead on the rest of the table.

            • misclickdonkey

              Member
              January 24, 2022 at 7:46 pm

              The way I take up these spots, is when I think the player isn’t playing GTO and I have a skill advantage. I don’t mind a flat here. I’ll take it to the streets and use my skill advantage and knowledge on post flop play. If you have a skill edge take it to the streets and you can probably steal the pot even if you’re not holding the best hand.

            • sirgasleak

              Member
              January 25, 2022 at 2:14 pm

              The reality is, this is exactly the kind of spot you should be avoiding: you’re chip leader on the FT with big pay jumps, 3 stacks with <10bb, and a potentially bloated pot with the one stack that can cripple you with a borderline hand against what is likely a strong range.

              Maybe I’m not as confident in my postflop play as misclickdonkey is, but you’re facing a 3.3x open and if you call you’ll be going to the flop with an SPR of about 1.5 (villain leaves himself with only 600k behind and a 455k pot on the flop). There’s very little room to use your postflop skill to outplay villain here, and unless you get your 9xx flop you’re not going to be very happy about putting more money in on pretty much any flop. So calling makes little sense to me.

              I also don’t like shoving because running into a strong range here would be a disaster. Even flipping against AK is ICM suicide. You’re basically praying he’s willing to raise/fold hands like TT/JJ/AK/AQ.

              I don’t think you have to play the hand given the situation. Folding seems gross but the ICM implications are huge here.

            • misclickdonkey

              Member
              January 25, 2022 at 9:19 pm

              Slightly off here, the pot is 275 on the flop. I personally think if we call here, the pot will play very passively if the player has any Idea of icm implications. But me personally I’m ok with seeing a flop for 100k hoping to hit a set and if I don’t accessing how the other player is playing their hand maybe i can steal maybe I’m good at the end im also ok with folding to a lead out on a 2 broadway flop or A high flop. If we fold the flop still 2nd in chips. But I do like your thinking. I just tend to play gto myself at least to best of my ability and stay away from exploitative poker myself, and don’t want to miss out on +ev spots for something that may or may not come later.

            • taylormaas

              Member
              January 27, 2022 at 9:20 am

              This hits exactly on another major concern of mine — Does the UTG player realize how impactful ICM is here in this exact spot? Why would they open so large if they knew the pressure that others were under? Are they going to blast away post-flop disregarding that they could bust out here?

              And if all that is true, do we maybe even want to flat way more than any other option? Cause going along that train of thought, doesn’t a jam make ZERO sense? And if we are concerned about how crazy they might get, folding isn’t crazy either, knowing that we would get into very uncomfortable positions post flop.

  • fivebyfive

    Administrator
    January 22, 2022 at 10:11 am

    I think I like a flat too and it is what I would’ve done in game. So more just a thought experiment, what about a fourth option? We raise to 250k. I’m not very worried about the short stacks and we’ve now made them all call off for their lives.

    But back to UTG. If we think UTG is competent, this should be a terrifying raise and should look very nutted. It really looks like AA wanting to get value. TT/JJ/AQ may fold, but even if they don’t, I don’t think they will shove over the top. When we’re called, I think we’re facing a very narrow range (TT/JJ/AQ/even some AK), and we can often force that range to fold by the river given our position. Or we can easily get away on terrible flops. If UTG jams over the top, it is an easy fold.

    Just a thought.

  • arw

    Member
    January 25, 2022 at 4:07 pm

    Call > Raise > Fold

    This is an excellent thread.

    +1 to misclick for doing the research

    +1 to taylor for posting a great spot

  • rabman50

    Administrator
    January 25, 2022 at 7:57 pm

    This is a great discussion. Misclickdonkey’s breakdown is a good way to understand what the GTO unexploitable strategy should be. As SirGasleak points out the villain’s actual range may not coincide with this GTO strategy. I think a key to understanding the villain’s range is the sizing he used pre-flop. Taylor didn’t mention whether this was a standard open on the table or whether this was a standard open by this player. A player who is playing a normal GTO strategy would never open to 3.3bb from a 23bb stack. If he is a player studied in GTO this bet size may be intended to exploit the other players. In other words, has he seen tendencies by the other players that he is trying to exploit by increasing his opening size? If his bet-size is indeed an exploit it must mean that he is not concerned with being balanced. If he has noticed that the other players will call regardless of the bet-size he may be doing this with a very strong range hoping for a call. If he has noticed that the other players overfold to bigger bet sizes he may be doing this with a wider range to induce those folds. A question for Taylor. Have you noticed either of these tendencies by the remaining players or is this just a guy picking up a random number of chips with no rhyme or reason?

    • taylormaas

      Member
      January 27, 2022 at 9:13 am

      Good question. We’re at the FT of a daily, stacks are really short, and as many can imagine, the majority of play so far has been all-ins. The only non-All-In opens we have seen thus far have come from me. Where I open to the minimum and get folds from others.

      This exact player in the hand has only shoved previously, but that is because of their situation. He was a short stack and jammed for 3.5 BBs (105k) into my BB. I called and doubled them up. Then a few hands later he shoved with his ~225k, busted a short stack, and crippled another stack in a 3-way pot. This is the first hand they played after that major chip up. Their holdings in the prior hands were K5s and ATo, if that matters to anyone.

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