Should ICM change my game that much?
I read that Bencb said "You're leaving MASSIVE money on the table at 20-35bb stacks if you're not mastering ICM"
I play 32 players SNG Turbo. So I play on final tables with like 8-12bb (the avg stack is something like that). So my question is: is ICM really that important when the avg stack is so shallow? Should I play the FT pretty much how I play on final 2-3 tables? Thanks.
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5 Replies
ICM is certainly important. Perhaps more so with shallow stacks and smaller fields, because making money is so important. (The players who understood ICM best in the early days of the boom were usually people who cut their teeth on single-table sit-and-gos.)
ICM is really just an attempt to model an important idea in tournaments: You want to make the decision that makes you the most money, not the decision that makes you the most chips. Early on, those decisions aren't too different, although there's always a slight premium in tournaments. Around the money bubble, the final table bubble, and the pay jumps at the final table are when they really matter in MTTs. So in a 32-man, I'm figuring 5 get paid? So probably at the final table when you're approaching the money and then the pay jumps is when it's most important
In practice, a lot of what ICM means is tightening up your calling ranges and trying to be first in (especially, in short-stack situations, moving all-in rather than calling all-in). There are good resources out there for understanding how to practically adjust your decisions for ICM.
But in sum, the easiest way to understand ICM is by the bolded statement above. You play to make money, right?
These days ICM is where the edge is with shorter stacks. By the time you get to the final table most of the players tend to be fairly proficient at the standard push fold game, but they still make massive icm blunders.
Hi, yeah 5 players get ITM on this games. I guess it's true that I should tighten up when others open raise and shove like usual, right? I might play Cash though by this time.
You generally want to shove tighter too and your range composition changes. Since all in calling ranges are so much tighter we generally prefer shoving with hands like suited aces that have blockers to the strongest hands over hands like small pairs.
Also note that there are some exceptions to the tighter heuristic. For example in certain specific scenarios big stacks can actually play looser because they are able to bully medium stacks who have an incentive to tighten up to outlast the short stacks.
Anyway don't let my comment intimidate you out of playing tournaments. If you're playing low stakes stuff most people are not well versed in these concepts so it's not like they're going to know that much you don't know. If you sign up for a free account for GTO lab you can do 3 free exercises a day in the ICM trainer. Just doing a few exercises will give you a much better feel for how much you should be tightening up.
You can also do the 'hard' work of playing with an ICM calculator to give you an idea of risk premium.
Here's the work I did yesterday on a NL 2-7 spot:
9 left, ITM, standard payouts (first is 10x 9th)
Hero opens, Villain jams.
I needed to call 185 to win a pot of 500, so I needed 37% equity for chips.
I had an average stack to start the hand, and would be left with 10BB if I called and lost.
For $ using ICM, I needed 43%. So, I had 6% risk premium, even though if I lost I did not bust.
Notice also that risk premium is not linear. If this was a spot where losing would bust me, the risk premium would be worse.
I did call in game, found a true coin flip. But, I knew that while my hand was pretty much a slam dunk call for chips, that my risk premium would make it close.
