My coach ran a spot by me this week, which I typically get right, but this time I got it wrong. I thought it'd be fun to write it up here and dissect where I went astray.

The spot was 5-handed at a final table. UTG had a single big blind, the next two players had around 11bbs each. The chip leader was in the Small Blind with 30bbs, and the hero was in the Big Blind with 14.5bbs.

UTG went all-in for their one remaining chip, and it was folded to the chip leader in the Small Blind, who shoved. Our hero in the Big Blind had ATo, was this a call?

Stack sizes determine ranges

This is a spot where we know we are ahead, but the question is: how far ahead are we? We need our hand to be better than just a head because of the ICM of the situation.

I felt like this was a fold. My reasoning being that I have studied spots like this a lot, and when you have a very short stack at the table, it ramps up the ICM pressure on the medium stacks. Likewise, when you have a really big chip leader, it has the same impact. In this instance, I perhaps overweighted how big the chip leader was. Ultimately, if we won the pot against him, our stacks would swap around, so it wasn't an overwhelming chip leader.

In GTO world, UTG is supposed to shove with almost everything for their final blind. When it's folded to the Small Blind, this is what they're supposed to reshove with.

Practically speaking, they shove with everything. Which means that in GTO world, this is what we should be calling with.

It's by no means a wide range. This is still a pretty tight calling range, but our hand in particular is a snap call.

It's useful to look at the Bubble Factors in spots like this to get a sense of how much ICM pressure there is.

We are indeed under a lot of ICM pressure, the most ICM pressure, in fact. Our Risk Premium is 18.3%, which means this is how much more equity we need above break-even to call. So not every pair and not every Ace will be in our range, but the big ones are.

Another factor I'd not considered is that even if we call and lose, there's a pretty reasonable chance that we will ladder ahead of UTG. They have an incredibly wide range, and we have a pretty strong hand, so it would be rather unlucky if we ended the hand with the third-best hand and UTG had the best hand.

Ultimately, though, it appears we just have to look at the upside a little bit more. We are crushing the Small Blind's range, and if we win this, not only do we ladder, but we put ourselves in a brilliant position to win the whole tournament.