Is ICM training enough to constantly win at the micro's?

Originally posted by GraveGoods
Is ICM training enough to constantly win at the micro's?

No, you need JEDI powers, without them you dont stand a chance

The short answer to your question is yes. The long answer to your question will be provided by someone else ♠_thumbsup:

The players at the micro stakes generally call looser than the ICM tells them to. This means you have to push tighter into a lot of players. How much tighter depends on the player. Even a lot of the regulars I find are calling far too loose.

In the early phase you can raise AJo and AQo comfortably from the late position even if your post flop play isn't great. You also need to blind steal in the mid phase of the tournament with less than premium hands to build your stack before you get to push/fold.

Post flop play seems to be less important at the micros because the errors of the other players are so huge that you can only play the very best hands post flop like sets, TPTK and overpairs. I've never worked on my post flop play and I am beating the micros.

Familiarise yourself with the concept of risk premiums and risk aversion which I think are mentioned in pzhon's Calling All-in and ICM videos. His program ICMExplorer is a great tool for this.

Read all of the articles on pokerstrategy then watch some of the SnG micro stake videos on this site. I found pzhon's videos for the theory and steinek's and chenny888's videos for live sessions really useful.

Hope this helps, it's most of the stuff I had to keep in mind to beat the micros.

adjust your opponent models in ICM wizard. this will help you find out if you are actually adjusting to the play at the levels you play.

Cheers for the help guys. So I guess ICM is enough, but you need to adjust the model slightly when playing lower levels, because your opponents will be looser.

Wohmfg - Thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep them in mind. Always great to get advice from someone who is where you want to be.

It is just a common misconception that players are loose in low stakes games.

Some players make terrible calls because they don't understand risk aversion. However, many players also make terrible folds because they don't understand how widely you are pushing, pot odds, and that they might not be risk averse against players they cover by a lot, or when they get heads-up. The net result is not to call wider in low stakes games, and if you fail to make proper pushes, you will miss many critical opportunities.

In low stakes games, players often push quite tightly, not loosely.

See my video "Super Turbo Ranges" for aggregate data on how widely super turbo players actually push/call at different stake levels, and how this compares with the Nash equilibrium you see in ICM Trainer.

pzhon, i've noticed in my games that playing at equilibrium (not too much bubble abuse, no any 2 shoves, etc.) works for 6max turbos at 13$ and doesn't at 3.5$.

Have you ever came across something like this? If yes, how to adjust?