$15 NLHE MTT Turbo: Final Table ICM Spot

[Chrispee]

HI There

I'm at the final table of the GG Poker $15 Day Saver Hyper Turbo. There are 5 people remaining.

I am 3rd in Chips on the button. I'm new to studying ICM spots so would like some opinions.

There are 2 shorty's.

Payouts (Note only 7 make the final table)
1 - $1259
2 - $910
3 - $658
4 - $476
5 - $344
6 - $258
7 - $179

Here is the hand. (Results Hidden)

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/5t1u6Agf


First question i have is should i even be opening this hand or just fold Pre? If the smaller stacks bust , i tend to make an extra 300 dollars.

As played, i was thinking that i have the chipleader to my left so when he calls he can have a fairly wide range of hands.

This player appears to be a reg as he has over 150K in tournament earnings.

When he leads out, my immediate thoughts were he is on some kind of draw and as the chipleader is trying to get me to fold. So when i see i have top pair and a flush draw i figure that i have enough equity to rip it and get him to fold. But also if he calls i can hit my flush.

Apricate any feedback on my thought process.

 

[eetenor]

HI There

I'm at the final table of the GG Poker $15 Day Saver Hyper Turbo. There are 5 people remaining.

I am 3rd in Chips on the button. I'm new to studying ICM spots so would like some opinions.

There are 2 shorty's.

Payouts (Note only 7 make the final table)
1 - $1259
2 - $910
3 - $658
4 - $476
5 - $344
6 - $258
7 - $179

Here is the hand. (Results Hidden)

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/5t1u6Agf


First question i have is should i even be opening this hand or just fold Pre? If the smaller stacks bust , i tend to make an extra 300 dollars.

As played, i was thinking that i have the chipleader to my left so when he calls he can have a fairly wide range of hands.

This player appears to be a reg as he has over 150K in tournament earnings.

When he leads out, my immediate thoughts were he is on some kind of draw and as the chipleader is trying to get me to fold. So when i see i have top pair and a flush draw i figure that i have enough equity to rip it and get him to fold. But also if he calls i can hit my flush.

Apricate any feedback on my thought process.

Thank you for posting.

1 Yes always open this in this spot- GTO chart is a shove some%
KQs plays well as a shove hoping to get the big stack to fold but having good equity if called and putting max ICM pressure on BB.

2 ICM requires preplanning- thinking about playing post flop play.
At these stack depths we do not have enough chips to realize all our equity post flop if our V act as the SB did on flops we missed.

3 Chip leader wide range yes but that range might include calls from 33 77. We have to remember we are showing strength when we raise the chip leaders blind. Some % of the time the chip leader will also slow play AA KK here hoping the BB might squeeze or that you might fold to there shove as that is what they should do if you have 9bb left.

4 A good study point for you would be to work on thinking in terms of full ranges in spots like this. The SB can have nut hands that will bet 1bb not just draws.

5 If the SB is trying to get you to fold then a good player folds to your shove. Why shove?
Why not let them bluff turn? We are pot committed in this spot with 9bb it does not matter when we get all-in so we want to keep the SB's full range in-we do that by calling flop not shoving.


Whatever the end result the key to this is we can only act on our thoughts at the time. Your thoughts were SB had a draw and hoping for folds (not a full range estimate) but we crush this boards main draw flush so we need not have the SB fold on flop. If you look at the board the SB cannot have pair and flush draw they can have 5c6c for flush and gut shot or Axcc all of which are calling shoves but 5h6h might lead and fold to the shove but it might hit a pair and stack off on the turn if we just call. Even if the SB sucksout on turn by hitting a hand that they would have folded that means we have the redraw to the flush.

You are seldom ever folding this hand post flop so ripping flop is an option- my above suggestions are solely based on thinking deeper in this spot off table to use in future in-game situations.

Hope this helps

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
Personally I just rip it in here for a little over 11 bigs. I would much rather pick up the blinds and antes uncontested rather than have to call off a jam from either of the players in the blinds. Or allow them to just call and see a flop for cheap. Min-raising is not a mistake, but its a higher variance play and put you in more tough spots postflop.

Flop
As played I tend to agree with eetenor, that its better to just call here and allow him to bluff the turn. When you have clubs, there are less outs, he can have against you, so protection is less important than, if you just had top pair. If for instance he has an ace, then Ac is not an out for him, because it will give you a flush. Getting it in on the flop is obviously a profitable play as well though, so we are kind of splitting hairs.

I do however want to comment a little bit on your thought process here. You say, that you think, he is trying to get you to fold. I dont think so, when he only bet 20% of the pot. If he was trying to get you to fold, he could just jam here, because you have almost no chips. The SPR is only a little over 1, so if he had a draw, he would almost be getting the right price even when called. What this looks more like to me is some sort of blocker bet. He is trying to bet a little less than, what he think, you would have bet, so that he can see the next card for cheap. Or maybe once in a while he flopped a monster, and he is trying to induce you to jam.

Then you say, that you moved in to make him fold, and this I definitely dont agree with. You have top pair second kicker, which is a very strong hand in itself, and you even have a flushdraw as backup in case you are behind. So when you jam here, its not a bluff, and its not for "protection". Its for value, because a lot of worse hands can and will call. If you wanted him to fold to avoid playing for all your chips, then the time to do that was preflop, and the way to do it was to move all in.

 

[ElmerS]

I agree with the comments above.
Preflop I would bet all-in.
You don't want to play postflop anymore because you don't want to bust as first and your opponent has to fold a lot against a open-shove.
You get many Ax and pairs to fold the better hand and will pick up 2 easy blinds which increases your stack with 22%.

If you decide to call and get this flop I like to call his 1bb bet on the flop to keep every bluff in the hand like.
I think people under bluff these spots so I put him on a range with Kx, sets, flush draws and maybe some weak hands like missed pair or Ax as a protection bet.

If he bets turn small you can get away on the river.
Because you block the Kx and flushdraw hands you want him to have

 

[fundiver199]

If he bets turn small you can get away on the river.

That would open a massive door for him to exploit us with random bluffs, plus we would be folding to worse hands like QJ or QT, that are betting for value. When we only start the hand with 11 bigs, we are not looking to get away from top pair. Its not even like, this is an extreme ICM spot, as the title suggest. Yes we are the mid stack on the final table, but the two shorter stacks have almost as many chips as us, and the current chip leader only has a little more than twice our stack. So this is still a completely open game, and if we dubble up through the chip leader, we will become the new chip leader.

 

[dallam]

Its not even like, this is an extreme ICM spot, as the title suggest. Yes we are the mid stack on the final table, but the two shorter stacks have almost as many chips as us, and the current chip leader only has a little more than twice our stack. So this is still a completely open game, and if we dubble up through the chip leader, we will become the new chip leader.

Exactly. I didn't see any ICM decisions here on our side.

The competitiors are split up two, there are two monster stacks and three small ones. Its not a difference right now between the smallest 6.5bbs and your 11bbs cause you 3 all can do is just push and fold.
Going back to this situation, as we are sitting on the button, and we had 2 folds behind us, the only way here is to jam, and separate our stacks to the smaller ones - this way we are building up the ICM situation. KQs itself can handle a call. So we can't be afraid here, we have to isolate the worse cards and grab up the valid pot.

As much as we are in the game as Fundriver pointed out, in this situation my shove-range would be here: Ax, Kxs, QJ, J10s, every pocket. Otherwise, fold. When we will grab the pot pre with KQs, we will have 13.5bbs as smaller stacks 8bbs and 6.5bbs - and these stacks almost indicates to thinking about in ICM: also they are gonna acting after you three bigger ones in the next round, which is again not an easy situation for them, and easily could end up in all-ins.
So if you take down this hand pre, I would say the ICM and the thinking progress on getting deeper by fold can start for you.