[Closed] pre-ICM play 6+.5

insta shove preflop
I don't wanna attack you, but there is no such a thing as pre ICM play, when you think that you haven't understood what ICM is and why it exists. Maybe you should work on that again.

ICM exists because any other play can be exploited, hence why when we make a shove we call it an "unexploitable shove". it utilises sklansky's gap concept heavily, meaning you need a much greater hand to call than to shove, because when you are shoving you take into account a great deal of fold equity. we add to this concept extra fold equity when you have the opponent covered and you are on the bubble, for example, and decrease this fold equity when you are shoving into a monster-stack.

the caller should then call with a hand that is quite far ahead of your range. your range will then increase, his callrange will increase, making your range decrease etc etc. a couple of iterations of this and we can estimate a pushrange in any situation against any stack.

you must use push/fold when your stack is less than 10BB because at this point any missed hand + continuation bet will commit you, assuming pot committed = half your stack. therefore you maximise fold equity and minimise exploitation with a direct all-in preflop.

something like that?

however 2 problems exist here: we are playing quite deepstacked (i have 17BB), and quite far from the bubble. already, we can see a shove by the villain (investing 17BB for a possible 1.5BB), and a decrease of FE far from the bubble calls for a normal raise.

so the question isn't really about ICM here, it's about how to respond to his raise. normally, without reads, i actually fold ATs in this spot, as i judge my FE against better hands to be absolutely 0 in this spot, and only a coinflip will call, and a very small range of hands he would initially raise would fold. so i'm effectively taking a flip against chipleader (---$EV afaik).

this is why i'm trying this "new" play. with a low Harrington's Q value and quite far from the bubble i'm more than happy to go broke with any high pair postflop, knowing full well that the villain is more than willing to go all the way against a shortstack with his hand that missed 66% of the time, hence making the play +EV and marginally +$EV.

i don't know... very long-winded but that is my reasoning. i think that i understand ICM quite well but here what i'm really asking is how to best exploit my opponent's raise. meanwhile, if it's a pure ICM question, on this limit, with no reads, i fold here.

Originally posted by chenny8888
something like that?

no

ICM is nothing more than a model to give the Chips you have a $EV, it is that simple, because in a SNG unlike in Cashgames the number that is printed on it has nothing to do with its value. The ICM is a way to calculate this Value, What you described are the plays that result form the ICM.
And because except form the fist hand your Chips don't have a $EV that you can see without some maths, so there is never a Play with out or before ICM.

And back to your hand:
ofc. you don't have FE against any better Hand, but you have his range crusched, and you want him to fold some worse hands too, you have to shove to get some hands like KQ otu or at least make them pay to draw you out.
You have a good hand protect it, you are getting ahead of your self, wehn you begin to ignore all the basics.

unam, i'm well aware of what ICM stands for and how to give a monetary value to my chips. i'm talking about what is commonly refered to as ICM play, or push/fold, and the reasonings behind it...

well personally at these blinds i never make these plays from the SB. most other "solid" players (by this i mean winning players at this limit) would also not stealraise first-in at these blinds. hell, my "steal" range in the villain's spot is something like A9s+, ATo+, etc. i assume my opponents are semi-solid without reads (it's quite early etc), so i make an easy fold here if it falls down to push/fold with a below-average hand.

going to parse this through sngwizard see if they agree here.. (do you have it btw? i think my trial period may have expired)

pre-ICM play 6+.5

If you understand what ICM is, then you should know that this titel is pure nonsense. And I just wanted to help you find a leak, if you think there is something like the pre-ICM game, then this would be a major leak.

Originally posted by chenny8888
well personally at these blinds i never make these plays from the SB. most other "solid" players (by this i mean winning players at this limit) would also not stealraise first-in at these blinds. hell, my "steal" range in the villain's spot is something like A9s+, ATo+, etc. i assume my opponents are semi-solid without reads (it's quite early etc), so i make an easy fold here if it falls down to push/fold with a below-average hand.

You don't have any guess what people are stealing with in this spot, I think I am a winning player on this limit, and I steal here with ATC sometimes, especially when a player like you folds AT here, you crush his range so hard. This would be a pretty easy call if he shoved, so why shouldn't I raraise him with some FE? You think he invests 250 with a monster, but is able to invest 1250 with worse hands? I don't get it.

http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=50&sb=25&ante=0&structure=0.5%2C0.3%2C0.2&s1=4335&s2=1170&s3=2500&s4=805&s5=3830&s6=860&s7=&s8=&s9=
Here a small guess of what he could shove $+EV in this spot, so what makes you think he might steal with less than that? When he still has a cheap way out of this hand when you fire back?

And the range that you declare as your "steal" range is the upper end of the range that I would value bet in this spot.

In short you are WAY to tight here, and you give the 6,5 players way too much credit.

agreed.

I dont think you can actually steal with these blinds, since every raise is a steal. The range for raising it up is so wide that it's just a regular "raise". I would shove this too. I also shove pretty wide on callers/miniraisers i dont have a particular "slowplays aces and only aces"-read on. It's just the postflopgame i dont want. This game is about folding equity.