Regarding ICM - i wrote a small piece about it in our 45 man study group, i dont no if my thought process is correct or wrong but i agree that the subject is very interesting, i personally disregard ICM 100% because i play turbos, dont get me wrong i,am not the greatest player in the world but i think its a individual preference.
Many of us use ICM calculators to determine what hands are +EV to shove in what spots (and what hands aren’t).
These ICM calculators are the key to short stack tournament poker. However, they have limitations.
ICM is a measurement of total prize pool equity. Using it, you can compare the value of your stack if you move in and if you fold.
The first problem we encounter is that your prize pool equity is based solely on the number of chips you have now relative to the total number of chips and players remaining. No account is taken of the players’ skill.
The calculator doesn’t know how good you are; even we humans don’t know exactly how good anyone is.
So, if you are one of the best players at the table, ICM is likely to underestimate the value of your stack; this will affect the best play.
Another major limitation of ICM, and the most relevant one is that because these calculators simply compare your prize pool equity if you shove or fold immediately after the hand, they ignore future hands.
Another way to put this point is that the real value of your stack can depend on the position of the blinds, whether you are likely to be in very bad situations soon, and so on. I n my view, when you are as short, you need to take shoves that ICM says are –EV, because folding is often even worse than ICM indicates.
The problem is that calculating just how bad our future situations will be can be extremely difficult. Nobody can figure this out with complete accuracy; it depends on all our opponents’ tendencies.
Usually we will not be dealt monster cards within the next orbit of play, and since our fold equity will disappear when we continue folding, we will be getting our chips all-in as huge underdogs a majority of the time.
If you are able to fully understand what ICM is, how it works, and what the ICM calculators are telling you, then you can apply good reasoning to learn when it is appropriate to deviate from their suggestions.
In this case, we have observed that ICM calculators are unaware that the tournament doesn’t end after the exact hand it is analyzing.
Because the tournament must continue, folding trashy cards with a stack of 4 or 10 big blinds can be pure suicide as you will soon have literally zero fold equity and close to zero prize pool equity.
We must do our best to estimate which EV shoves are appropriate and which aren’t. The short answer is that almost all EV shoves in the described situation are very appropriate and necessary.
