When does ICM start for you?

alienat3d

alienat3d

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In other words wrapped, from how many Big Blinds in your stack do you start playing "Push or Fold"? Does it depends on your hand at all?

I would say, for me it's about 12BB or less, no matter what hand i have.
 
EvertonGirl

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Don't confuse a ICM situation from a short stack situation.

Short stack is when your big blinds are depleting and you need a DU

ICM is a different ball game. ICM comes into effect when you are on the bubble of ITM and the bubble of the FT, and ICM hugely comes into effect at a final table.

With short stacks if you are unsure what to shove, google push fold charts. also use the snap shove App on google play.
 
Eric Salvador

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If the tournament in very aggressive and there are a lot of shoving I start at anything lower then 20bb. I need fold equity in these spots and with super aggros you'll be call with anything less then 10bb frequently. If it's very tight probably anything less than 10bb. If its just a well balanced it will be around 10-14bb
 
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depends on my position , how large the blinds are and of course how many BB I have. I find that around level 15 with a 2.5x raise you can get a fold, for me it is 8 BB, I find that 12 is a bit too early for me. I find this works in late position or in the blinds with others limping.
 
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For me it is 7/8 big blind...10bb i still play....
 
bombardinho

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The ICM situation for all must advance on the prize marks. 1- Bubble 2-Payout jump 3-final table. And nothing else. In other cases, the game is played by Chip EV
 
alienat3d

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First of all, thank you all guys for your various opinions, that's why i love that community. We have so many differently thinking minds here. It making able to look at any question from all possible points of view. :)

@EvertonGirl & bombardinho, oh boy, now you are confusing me. Maybe i'm totally lost in understanding of the term "ICM", but all of those years it was the same, as "Push or Fold" situation. And why it comes to Push or Fold situation explaining a simple math example:
Let's imagine a situation, where we have 12BB stack. And let's imagine there are no antes yet involved. (Which is sort of unrealistic example, as antes come pretty early at basically pretty every online tournament.) So we're at any position, except Blinds with AKs and about to raise. So what happen with out SPR (Stack to Pot Ratio), when we make a standard x3 raise? Pot is already 1,5BB+3BB(our raise)+3BB(villain call)=7,5BB pot at the flop and we have only 9BB in our stack left. The pot consist already 83% of our stack, which means we're totally pot committed there, we can't just fold a good hand here, because flop doesn't fit us.
Okay, let's take another situation:
We're holding the same hand AKs, but on BU, where we usually raise x2.2BB. Stack is still 12BB. Let's see what happen with SPR now. 1,5BB (Blinds) + 2,2BB (raise) + 2,2BB (call) = 5,9BB in pot on a flop and our stack is 9,8BB left. Pot is 60,2% of our stack still and this is still in HU situation. And this is still a pot commitment for me. As SPR gets too high with basically any raise pre-flop, so why give any chance to your villain to call you off and hit the flop? Better instantly push and play all streets equity + having much better fold equity from players behind you, as it's much harder to call 12BB, as 2,2BB obviously even for a big stack. And also you remove your eventual positional disadvantages on postflop.

That how it is for me.

p.s. Considering that, antes are pretty much often there. Maybe i should re-think my standards about 12BB and increase it a little, something about 13-14BB maybe.. As antes adds 1-1,2BB extra to the pot each hand, which even more increase SPR at the end.
 
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nml

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Yeah, that’s not quite ICM. It stands for independent chip model and its a way to compare your stack to the actual money you can/should win. It’s basically your expected return at any given point in a tournament.

Use an ICM calculator and try it out with a few different scenarios. The important thing to realize is that double chips does NOT have double the value (unless it was a heads up event).

I just recently grasped this concept and actually broke it down mathematically here: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/shoving-once-itm-382707/post-4443987.html

So I got the value of my current stack ($2.50), compared to if I lost it all (payout was $1.10), if I didn’t get called on my shove (up to $2.85), and if I got called and won ($3.40). Then I multiplied those figures by the percentages of each situation happening to find the play was +EV (by .18).

Hope this helps!
 
EvertonGirl

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I believe I would use ICM more in a satellite going for say a 200+ ticket

Let's say the satellite pays 5 tickets and we are on the bubble and we have KK in the SB and there are 3 all ins, I would consider folding so I don't bubble. I believe that is the only time I am ever folding KK pre.

In a short stack situation not a ICM situation I would jam KK all day long.
 
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