Should we change our strategy after max late regging?
Is the max late reg stage of a tournament ICM-influenced enough that we should change our post flop strategy from the standard Chip EV approach?
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.
I have been playing around with the new post flop ICM feature from GTO Wizard a lot lately, and I used it to answer another question I had.
There is a lot of talk about late registration in poker. Obviously, those who max late reg come in at a shallow stack depth. I wondered this week if the max late registration was already ICM-influenced enough to change the strategy to something closer to ChipEV.
I simulated a tournament that had 60% of the field remaining, which is about right for non-bounty tournaments on GGPoker and PokerStars in my experience. Then I simply compared two hands, one in ChipEV and the other based on the above scenario.
The stacks are 30bb effective. The BTN has opened, the BB has called, and the flop is Q♦J♦7♥.
In both spots, the BB checks 100% of the time. In Chip EV world, this is what the BTN does:
And this is the same spot in a tournament with 60% of the field remaining:
The first thing to note is the preflop ranges are different, the Chip EV range is a little bit wider. The ICM range is quite a bit more aggressive, betting 74.1% of the time compared to 63.7% of the time. However, while there is more overbetting in the ICM range, for the most part the bet sizing has drifted downwards to the 20% bet size.
This is the response to the smallest bet in ChipEV world:
And the same response in ICM world:
The differences here are a little more subtle, but there is less check/raising in the ICM example and the larger raise size is preferred when the BB does. This makes sense to me, in ICM spots we try to avoid big pots, but if we are going to raise we want to give our opponent a chance to fold.
I could go on, but I have my answer. I tried this out with a variety of flop types and most of the time the same thing happened, bet sizing changed as did aggression frequencies. The max late registration period is already ICM influenced enough that we should change our strategy from something close to Chip EV.
Previous self study articles
- Playing against disconnected players
- Overbetting with Ace King
- Why do we check back with Range Advantage?
- Why do I turn top pair into a bluff?
- How I use ICMIZER
- How wide can we go with Antes?
- Why can we bluff missed straight draws more than missed flush draws?
- How to play a strong underpair on a wet board
- How to play a 15BB stack
- How often does Villain have an Ace?
- Why do we not check/raise with the nut flush draw?
- Why do we bet small on the turn?
- When do we open shove the flop?
- The difference between SB and BB defends
- Blocker/Unblocker
- How to pick your bluffs
- When NOT to bluff a big draw
- Which hands over realise equity?
- When to check to induce bluffs on the river?
- What do we do when the check/raise backfires?
- The let's keep it friendly bet
- Post flop ICM analysis
- How do bounties change post flop strategy?
How do you study away from the tables? Let us know in the comments:
