$11 NL HE STT: Learn from the opponents - dont commit ICM suicide on the bubble

F

fundiver199

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Hold'em
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STT
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  1. Turbo
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This hand is from the bubble of an 8-man SnG on ACR Poker and is a good illustration of the poker term ICM suicide. In an 8-man SnG (most other sites have 9-mans) the payouts are 50/30/20, and this basically mean, that when the bubble has burst, 60% of the money is already distributed, and each chip is therefore worth 60% less. Right now with the $10 buyin (+$1 rake) the combined value of the chips are $80, but when the first player has busted, it will only be $32, because now that is all, there is left to play for.

And for that reason you need a huge equity edge to call it off for all your chips, especially if you are a mid-stack or have a similar stack as other players. I plugged this hand into ICMizer, and the only hands, BTN and SB can profitably call with here, are 99+. Calling with A6o loses SB a whopping 4.12% of the price pool or in this case $3.3 of his $10+1 investment. And this is even assuming, that CO (Hero) is jamming 83% of hands, which is the Nash equilibrium. In reality most players will be jamming less than this, which makes the call even worse.

So even though you might be annoyed, that this chip bully is jamming on you (again), you just need to be disciplined and fold. You do not want to be the "table sherif", who try to punish someone for going all-in preflop, when it is in fact the GTO strategy for them to do so. And if it annoy you, that you can not see a flop with A6 offsuit, then you should probably not be playing a turbo SnG but choose a game with a slower structure instead. Or even a cash game.

With that being said its also worth to look at this hand from my perspective. And while jamming Q9o is the GTO strategy against GTO opponents, I think, in this spot either min-raising or simply folding would have been slightly better. Realistically I had no way to know, that SB was going to call me this wide, but its sort of optimistic to assume, that people in a $11 SnG are able to fold AK preflop. And if I widen BTNs and SBs calling range to be 77+, AQ+, then jamming Q9o is completely breakeven.

At the Nash equlibrium min-raising Q9o is completely breakeven, because I will get jammed on quite a bit, and that of course will force me to fold. However these 3 opponents all had 3-bet percentages of 5-6, so they are likely not rejamming anywhere near the Nash equilibrium ranges. And BB is perhaps not playing a pure jam or fold strategy either, which can allow me to sometimes get called and then take it down postflop.

So while I will not classify my jam with Q9o as a mistake, I do think, it was slightly suboptimal. Against these specific opponents min-raising would have been better, and with aggressive 3-betters at the table you can just fold and let them go to war with each other. Luckily I sucked out on the table sheriff this time though :)

 
Andyreas

Andyreas

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Nice analysis, fundiver. (y)
Definitely a thing to keep in mind when playing STTs. 🤓

He was also the second largest stack, so the smaller stacks were probably very happy about his call ☺️
 
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fundiver199

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Definitely a thing to keep in mind when playing STTs. 🤓
And also MTT final tables, although the ICM tend to be more extreme in STTs. But say its 6 players left on the final table, and UTG has folded with a 2,5BB stack. Then you dont want to call it off for 16BB with A6 offsuit either. You want to let UTG risk his chips first, so that hopefully you lock up one more payjump.
He was also the second largest stack, so the smaller stacks were probably very happy about his call ☺️
For sure they were :)
 
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