Ignition 100K main event 270 buy-in

1st hand

Small Blind (Me) 80K chips
Big Blind 30K chips

54 places paid, 60 players left

Action folds to me. I shove with 8/6 off. Big blind calls with A3SS?????? ICM buddy??????

2nd hand

54 places paid, 58 players left

UTG + 4 (me) 60K chips with AKos

Two big stakes raised to 9K in front of me

I 3bet to 22K

One of them calls.

Flop Q 10 8 rainbow

Check Check

Turn A, He bets 16k, I call

River 9, He shoves, I fold.

3rd hand

54 places paid, 56 players left

CO 22K chips 55/58 place (me)

Action folds to me and I shove with 33 (last hand another short stack shoved with AA and got it through. I figured my shoving range is uber strong considering ICM)

Small blind with 110k stack calls with A8os and spikes a 8 on the flop.

I finish 56th and 2 places from money (min cash is 550)

I didn't like how I played the 2nd hand (should have shoved pre flop or turn. or might as well folded) but felt that the 1st and 3rd hand were ok and that villain simply made bad calls.

It's hard to play winning poker if you don't have stats or a subjective read on your opponents -- and if you're relying on ICM to do all the work for you. Rather than fume about your opponents "bad calls" (which made them money), here's a different way to look at it.

First hand. Was the SB short-stacked because he'd been playing nit poker forever and not getting hands? Or was he seriously active and just lost a big pot? Crucial question! If it's the first, he's probably got a narrow calling range and your move is fine. If it's the second, he may be ready to play double-or-nothing with any top 40% hand. That doesn't mean your shove is wrong. You still have pretty decent equity if called with better, and you will get a lot of folds. But you should think twice if you want so much variance.

Second hand. Your post-mortem is correct. When you made your preflop bet, what was your strategy if you hit the flop, assuming you got a caller? If you missed it? Everything is sized awkwardly for post-flop play. Shoving makes the most of your fold equity and gets you paid in full if the hand works out.

Third hand: Hey, you're the guy who shoved 86s a few orbits ago! You may not be paying attention to your image, but everyone else is. You're going to get called by a LOT of hands in this situation. I might call you with K6o. Placing your faith entirely in other people's strict adherence to ICM is unrealistic. At this stage, you've got minimal FE and should probably just hope to fold your way past the bubble unless a big hand arrives.

First off, the size of the blinds is very important. We need to know how short a stack 30k is.

If it is less than 12 blinds then Villain 1's decision is not really that crazy especially if he knows what you are capable of. If he has < 15 BB's & > 12 BB's then I think it was a tough choice for him. If he had > 15 BB's then I think he made a mistake... Maybe he was playing for the win and didn't care about min cashing.

Hand 2 if the 9,000 raise in front of you was a normal 2.25x raise (i.e., blinds are 2000/4000) with a call then you have to shove with AKo not re-raise. If two big stacks each raised in front of you (blinds like 600/1200 or 800/1600) I would probably fold AK in this spot. But I am definitely not raising to 22k. That is a pot committing type bet (>30% of your stack). Either shove or call (experience has taught me that shoving AK in these spots gets me knocked out over half the time...)

3rd hand it matters how many blinds you have left. It also matters what the BTN and BB stack size is. The SB call wasn't that terrible a call for only 20% of his stack. Especially if your stack was under 12 blinds.

Thank you for the replies. As you can tell, I am not much of a tournament player.

Blinds were at 2k/4k. Now that better players have given me feedbacks, I feel that I have indeed made several mistakes there.

Just a little more background on my image and hands. I ran insanely well early on and was chip leader of the tournament for the first half. I had 70k chips when the 2nd biggest stack had 48k. But obviously didn't know how to play big stack and just played really tight overall. Only played super premium hands and lost a flip with 99 calling someone who shoved with AQo. Chip count didn't improve over the next two hours and everyone caught up.

Thats when the 8/6 hand came up. I thought I had a super solid image and that even with an open bluff I thought the guy with the 30K stack was going to fold. There was a 8k stack and several 10k stacks left at that stage.

The AKo hand I kind of butchered. My thought was to fold if I miss and to commit if I hit. But the way that hand played out was kind of gross. I would have definitely shoved at different stages of the tournament but didn't feel like going out so close to the money. Guess that mentality got me knocked out!

On my last hand, the 8k stack flipped his stack and won with AA and I was almost the shortest stack by then when I shoved the 33. BB had 80k+ chips but regardless.....I guess SB's call isn't as bad as I thought it was.....

Thanks for the extra detail. The attempted blind steal with 86s is the most defensible of the bunch. You had 45% equity as it played out, and if you'd won, you'd be regarding that as part of what propelled you deep into the tournament. I'd still regard that as a very read-dependent move, and I'd probably make it only against a Villain that was not too LAGgy, but different approaches can all be justified.

We're all in agreement on the AK hand.

On 33, it sounds like a loose enough table -- or contemptuous enough of bubble math -- that a couple players with bigger stacks might have gone bust before you did. There's no glory in trying to hibernate your way past the bubble, but if you can last two or three orbits, sometimes it's your best shot.

Turning back the clock, look for ways to torment the middle stacks if you're the big stack. They are the most likely to think preservation as a messy hand plays out, leading to folds even when they aren't 100% sure they are beat and have some chips in the middle.