ICM when we're ITM- when to call, when to shove?

[jaded848]

There's been a lot of talk regarding bubble play, 5 man play, etc, but I'd like to bring up how to play once we are actually in the money. Obviously our objective now changes- we are going for first place all the way. But another variable in the mix also changes- our opponents are likely going to call us wider, since most people see everything past this stage as "bonus."

Having said that, how should we adjust our shoving strategy? Here's a hand that happened to me last night. The reason I didn't post this in the HA sub-forum is because my question isn't really in regard to how to play the hand (i think I call here every time), but in regard to the situation itself, and what hands I can call with here (and similarly, what hands could I shove with if I were the villain?)

Just to make my point clearer, I've included the results. Villain shoved on me with J6s. Now, if this were the bubble, and seeing as how we have similar stack sizes, that shove would probably be correct, as I would be folding out most of my hands. But since we're ITM, we can assume my range is widened considerably, so does that make this shove by him -EV? What hands should he be shoving with against me here? What hands should I be calling his shove with, considering I know him to be a reg and that his range is fairly wide?

Along those lines, what hands can I shove into the CL here? What hands could I call the CL with?


Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 2.25 Tournament, 120/240 Blinds (3 handed) - [U
Hero (BB) (t1295)
Button (t10515)
SB (t1690)
Hero's M: 3.60
Preflop: Hero is BB with Qclub, Aspade
1 fold, SB bets t1690 (All-In)[/COLOR], Hero calls t1055 (All-In)

 

[Henreiman]

Let me take a crack at this. We're obviously super short, and we wake up with a pretty decent hand. Small blind is basically shoving any two decent cards here to be profitable, so we stand to be ahead. SB is pretty short as well, but we should still be getting equity for a call. Now let me plug into SNGWiz.

OK, so I was basically right. SB's opening range (on average, obv no reads here) is 52%, and your call range is 43% (Any pair, J9+, 98s+). AQ off just makes the cutoff at 5%, so easy call. However, I should note that while in this example the open range was listed at 52%, shoving any two cards as the SB is considered +$EV.

For pushing chip leader, assuming chip stacks are EXACTLY the same, except that you are in SB and CL is in BB, you should be pushing top 39.7% (any pair, J10+, 108s+)