Actually it's pretty good advice for STT's (which it seems OP is interested in, if this were ring the advice would be totally different). During the high blind phase of the tournament it's really really important to shove wide, which inevitably means we'll be getting in our money bad. ICM shows us that this is profitable, plus you also have to keep in mind that the blinds are constantly escalating so you have to keep on stealing the blinds by shoving just to stay alive. Add in the fact that a lot of players, especially at micro/low limits, will play tighter than they should at high blinds (and looser than they should at low blinds), then we can steal even wider and show a profit in the long run according to ICM.
Believe it or not this is actually where most of our profits come from. We won't usually gain much equity from doubling up early, as there are more players remaining and therefore the total tournament equity has to be shared among more players. In the late game there are more opportunities to gain equity by blind stealing, and as the game gets more short handed these gains become greater and greater. This is also usually the part of the tournament where our opponents play the worst, i.e. they have the most leaks here. So by taking advantage of the frequent +$EV opportunities along with the +$EV spots that our bad opponents provide us, shoving wide becomes the single most important part of our game.
So if there aren't times where we shove 65o from the SB into the BB and he wakes up with KK
then yes, we're playing too tight, because the majority of the time we'll steal the blinds uncontested and really increase our equity in the long run. It's not about "getting it in good", it's about making +$EV plays. Ask Collin Moshman and he'd tell you the same thing.
sorry if it seems like I'm spamming this thread now (and derailing quite a bit tbh), but I'm back on my own computer now, so I wanted to elaborate a little on this with SNGWiz.
Let's assume we're 5-handed in a 9-man turbo, the blinds are t250/t500 and all players have t2700 stacks, which is roughly 20% equity here. We're in the SB and the action folds to us. We have 32o. Our opponent
tells us that if we shove, he'll call with any pocket pair, any ace, and any two broadway cards. Should we shove? Absolutely, and in fact it's not really a close decision.
The reason is because we stand to gain t500 chips, which represents a substantial increase to our tournament equity, let's say it increases our equity by about 5%. Given the range he said he'll call with, we'll only get called about 25% of the time, so 75% of the time we're increasing our equity by a ton, uncontested. The 25% of the time he does call, we have ~30% equity:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 71.289% 70.79% 00.50% 5120061492 36095076.00 { 22+, A2s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, A2o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo }
Hand 1: 28.711% 28.21% 00.50% 2040520452 36095076.00 { 32o }
(I'm rounding a little to make the math a little easier).
Obviously the 70% of the time he calls and we lose our equity drops to zero, but when we in our equity jumps probably near 35%. So doing some quick math:
x = .25*[.7*(0%-20%)+.3(35%-20%)] + .75*(25%-20%)
x = 1.375% gain in equity on average
I've attached a photo of SNGWiz showing the exact numbers in this spot (like I said, I rounded a lot to make some of the math easier). Obviously this spot was extremely simplified because we knew exactly what the villain's calling range was, in game we won't know for sure but if we have a HUD or have been paying attention we should be able to determine somewhat how wide/narrow he will be calling. If he's calling tighter, we shove wider. If he's calling wider, we shove tighter. At the end of the day when you start to add up all of the $EV's of these spots, you're burning money if you don't take advantage of these situations.
