Playing a $100 weekend tournament with a pretty bad structure. 10 left (final table) out of 40 starting, 6 get paid. Just lost about 75% of my stack with AQ against AJ.

Average stack is like 7.5b (blinds 2k/4k,200, top 2 players have more than half the chips in play).

Hero is 2nd shortest stack, after posting BB and ante hero has 17.4k behind.
UTG shoves all in for 11.6k. Folds to hero with 106.

Is this a call? We need to risk 7.6k to win 19.6k giving us a little over 2.5:1. This guy is shoving super wide as he's obviously either all in this hand or next hand, so here's a couple of things I wanna add before we can make a decision.

1. Field is super soft, so if I save the 17.4k, we actually have A LOT of fold equity if we open shove a different hand. (Nobody will call with like A4 or K8 but for some reason they will call with J10 or QJ).
2. If we make the call, we will have 37k chips, which will be ahead of tournament average, and we can probably fold into the money, or pick much much better spots.
3. If we lose, we're the short stack with like 2.5bb, with the sb next hand.

Also please note that I realize that this structure is terrible, but its the only tournament running anywhere near me and the field is super soft.

Would like to see the math and theory behind the call/fold here. Maybe it's an easy decision for some, I'm not sure... really close for me honestly..

A lot of people will say that UTG should be shoving close to ATC, but Jennifear (which I assume is Nash) only has it 43% here (42.7%, 22+ Ax+ K2s+ K7o+ Q3s+ Q9o+ J5s+ J9o+ T6s+ T9o 96s+ 86s+ 75s+ 65s). You're clearly behind that range, but without doing the math, you almost certainly have the odds at least on a cEV basis against this (and almost any reasonable range you put him on). ICM maybe a lot closer. With a field this soft, I think you're right, it's a very close decision, and I might find a nit fold here.

Would love some more replies since hitchens97 agrees it's very close, any crushers out there to help a brother out?

Tough spot indeed, i play in a similar local tourney weekly, with many of the same dynamics u mentioned. I would prolly nit fold because of those dynamics, especially the fold equity. Most players in these super soft fields don't understand shoving ranges, thus i almost always want to be the one shoving, even with this very small stack. And being in the BB, u will have button soon and hopefully a couple spots in position to shove accordingly. All that said, i don't think calling is wrong, i would just prefer to take this approach.

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1) When I am down to a decision of this hand or next, my shove range is about 47%. Overall, I would think most players are about here. If your hand is too weak, why not just wait and hope to get a better hand in the BB. Your equity against this type of range is about 35%.

2) Soft competition has little effect when there are relatively no chips to play with. So this has little bearing on the decision.

3) Without knowing the payouts, the ICM would make the final determination. I would guess the ICM factor is at least 1.5:1, meaning the ICM adjusted equity you would need is 37.5%. (But then again, without all of the payouts and all of the stacks, the ICM factor is just a rough estimate.)

4) So how wide does he have to be to get better than 37.5%? He has to be shoving 62%. Granted he could be, but most of the shove charts are a little under 50% for this spot.

I would conclude that this is probably an ICM fold.

Payouts are super top heavy with 30% for 1st and its right about 2x buy-in for 6th. I think you're underestimating the softness of this competition even at such shallow stacks, as I've seen many ridiculous things things such as limp-folding in ep/mp with a 3-5bb stack, and folding in the bb to a <2bb shove as one of the big stacks.

It looks like folding is probably better here, but what is the dead bottom of our calling range?

I'm thinkin 10 9 off is a call, which is prolly bottom

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Think about edge for a while. If a good cash game players winrate is 10 BBs per 100 hands, that would mean his edge over the competition is 0.10 per hand dealt. This is with deep stacks.

As stacks shrink, a good player edge will shrink. Why? Think about it logically. with 200 BBs stacks, how large of an error can a player make?

If a player only has 5 BBs. How big of an error can he make? 5 BBs. So the winrate with stacks of this size cannot be very large. Granted, there has to be some, because errors are made. But my point is that BBs per 100 that you win at these stacks is your "edge." Realistically, what do you think your edge can be. And even if it is as high as 10 BBs per 100, do you realize how little that will change the equity required.

Instead of setting the ICM factor at 1.5:1, we add in an edge factor too and make it 1.6:1. Then taking the pot odds offered here and combining them instead of the 37.5% needed for the ICM adjustment, now adjusting for the edge we need 39% equity. It is some, but how many times have you or have you seen players talk about passing up spots citing edge when getting something like 45% in spots like this.

So my point is that players are vastly over estimating "soft" fields and edge. It does matter, but not on the levels players are estimating currently.

Look at your database (if you play online with a HUD). Separate out your database by stack sizes and determine your win-rate for each stack size. This is your edge at each stack.

Let's use Jennifear's shove charts as reference. She gives a 37% shove range with 10% antes. The lowest the ICM factor could be is about 1.2. Again without all of the details, there is no way to exactly determine ICM. Adding in an edge, let's settle on 1.3:1. Our pot odds are 2.5:1. So we need a minimum equity of 34%.

Put all of these details into Equilab hand range calculator and the answer it gives for a calling range is:

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 95s+, 93s, 84s+, 73s+, 63s+, 52s+, 42s+, A2o+, K2o+, Q2o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o, 76o, and 65o.

On the higher end with 1.5:1 ICM we need 39% equity and our range changes to:

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q5s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A2o+, K3o+, Q9o+, and JTo.

So the details of the ICM information are super important here. Without them, all of the answers are just best guesses.

You're absolutely right, and they nearly always don't push enough. However I find that dynamic changes when they're really short stacked like 3-4BB when they push close to ATC, and we can see from Jennifear that that is wrong.