News: How to butcher an ICM hand

Barry Carter gets every street wrong in a post flop bubble hand he played....but seriously buy his books.

In the self study series Barry Carter shows you how he tried to solve a poker problem then consults a coach or solver to get feedback on his method.

My next book project with Dara O'Kearney is on post flop ICM. Today I wanted to share a hand review I did on GTO Wizard where I messed up, well, all of it.

The hand was very near to the bubble, I was the BB with 20bbs, the BTN opened and they had 40bbs. I was about average stack, they were one of the leaders.

I flatted with A♦6♦. The flop came 6♣2♥2♠.

I checked, they bet 33%, I called.

The turn came 4♥. It went check check.

The river brought a 5♠, I checked, they bet 75% pot, I called, they showed Q♠T♠ and we win.

The first decision was preflop, I am always proceeding with A♦6♦ but is my hand a raise? If it was A♦2♦ to A♦5♦ I think I shove because we have the wheel outs in addition to our other hand properties.

I found a very similar spot in GTO Wizard and this is what my response should be:

It seems our hand is mostly a shove, I have fallen into the trap of thinking my best draws make my best bluffs, but not always against wide ranges.

Our hand does continue some of the time, however, so I have taken this to the flop using GTO Wizard's Ruse AI.

My next decision is whether to lead. This is actually a good flop for a preflop defender and not quite, but almost, a lead board in my opinion. I have more 6-x than the BTN. However, they cover me significantly and that is the deciding factor in my decision to check. GTO Wizard agrees, so onto the BTN.

The BTN range bets, which makes sense. While I have more 6-x, both of us miss this board most of the time and therefore the stronger preflop range is usually still ahead. The BTN has all the overpairs, boats and quads on this board, but I would have raised all those hands preflop.

The big decision now is whether I check/raise or not. The solver likes to take the pot down as the shorter stack on bubbles and I suspect I got this wrong by bluff catching.

The solver agrees....I did get it wrong:

I felt clever at the time when I played this hand, but in hindsight I butchered it. I forgot the fundamental difference between MTTs and cash, which is that we are much more incentivised to take the pot down with the "best" hand and move on to the next one. I got this so wrong, my hand is the only pure shove because it can get called by worse 6-x and win.

Just for fun to see if I can get every street wrong, I have node locked so I mix with A♦6♦.

Onto that 4♥ turn. This is a very good card for my range and in ChipEV world I suspect would be a lead, but with the ICM pressure I checked and GTO Wizard agreed.

This is what the BTN does:

My range has got stronger, so the BTN no longer range bets. They now value bet mainly top pair and overpairs, bluffing with Ace-x and straight/flush draws. The check mostly with Ace-high type hands and missed broadway.

The river is the 5♠ which again is good for my range, I have all the lower cards that connect with this. However, the BTN in my mind has mostly missed, so I think inducing a bluff is the best option.

The solver agrees....but look. While my hand is a pure check, most of the 6-x is betting here. So my overall read might be off.

The BTN is supposed to do this when we check:

In a real-life game, I can't see them having that many bluffs or 6-x in the betting range, or by the river in general. However, I do think they have mostly missed by the river, so I think my line was OK. If I lead instead, this is what they were supposed to do:

In real life I can't see much 5-x and 4-x calling, so I felt this was a better spot to bluff catch. However, I node locked so that 5-x and 4-x always folded, and the solver now has me do this:

We actually bet more with our hand, even though the hands we want value from fold. This is because the same hands are occasionally turned into bluffs and it's still a better outcome, on balance, to force the folds than to get folded off our hand.

So there you have it, I got the best outcome for my hand by playing every decision point wrong. The main takeaway here is when the hand is too good to fold, bet it all and get the hand over with sooner than later.

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