I used to have this mindset too. And i understand why it makes sense, but if we are passing up on good call down spots, we're passing up on spots where we should be netting a ton of equity in tournaments. So think about it, when we shove into someone, sure we have the chance to take their blinds without a showdown, which nets a little chunk of equity at less risk. However when we get called, we're usually crushed, but we still win a small % of the time, but lose a much higher %.
When we make a call down, it's usually for one of two reasons. We have generous pot odds, or we have a hand that is far ahead of villians range. So in that situation, we are calling because we presume we are ahead, so we play a huge pot, which nets us a huge amount of equity if we win, but it's also a pretty big risk, however taking one call down spot like that is less of a risk than shoving into the same player 4-5 times in a row i would say.
Anyways what i'm getting at is that if we pass up on good call down spots, we're passing up on a ton of equity, and letting loose shovers exploit us. If we show to call down light, they also may think twice about shoving on us in the future, making this even better for us, as we may get walks!
What makes an ITM decision differant from this bubble decision?
When the payout structures are flat like a 9 man SNG, then getting ITM is really crucial, as it's where we lock in 20% of the prize pool, and it's where 60% of the prize pool is given out. In a 45 man, (generally) 4 % is given out in 7th place, so it's not a huge gain for us. the payouts are the following
4% - 7% - 9% - 11% - 16% - 22% - 31%
7th- 1st
Ok so let's quickly run some ICm calculations, you can do them yourself using any ICm calculator that lets you run it up to 10 positions. (
http://www.icmpoker.com)
Ok so lets run it for the bubble situation above.
Right now, we have ~13% equity.
If we call and lose we have 0%.
If we call and win we jump to ~18%
So right there we risk 13% equity to gain 5% equity, yay. So obviously it tells us we need a super strong hand to be able to call here, unpaired hands like AK simply don't do well enough against loose ranges to justify calling, which is why paired hands like 99+ do so well against loose ranges, they have the chance to get it in as an 80% favourite a hell of a lot more than AK can.
So lets run the same situation, but this time we are ITM and see how much this changes when we have 4% of the prize pool locked up.
So now we have around ~13% equity still even when we jump ITM.
If we call and lose it's now 4% we finish with, Awesome.
If we call and win, it jumps to ~18.5%
So it's essentially the same scenario, but this time, instead of being left with 0%, we now get 4%. Yipee! So it's a very similar range we should be calling with, those big paired hands are going to do well.
Other than ICM, we should also take into account how the stack sizes correlate. Like how we sit in relation to other stack sizes. Pat said we're in a great position, i'm inclined to disagree. We have a big stack on our right, who can shove super wide into us, and we have a big stack on our left who we have to be a little more risk averse against. So the stacks arn't really setup in our favour, making us a little looser in taking bigger risks.
How does gaining a stack of say 15k help us in the future? Well it will help us a lot actually, we can now shove much wider into the stack on our left, and the stack on our right will most likely tighten his range.
