Hello,

Villain is a decent reg, but not spewy or anything like that. His rfi bvb is 67% on 7k hands. What's the GTO line here with AKo? At the time I was thinking
a/ i will get more value by flatting then by 3beting as I dont expect him to 4bet spew shove ever and I would need to calloff in high equity spot.
b/ he's gonna fold a lot of his range and almost never flat. If he does flat, he would have good equity hands vs my AKo most of a time. (like JTs etc)
c/ when I flat, he would never give me strong Ax and I can pick up a lot of 2-3 barrels on Axx boards quite frequently.

Do you always 3bet/gii this? If so, why? Is my reasoning good in this spot? I think we can decrease variance by flatting also. Thanks

i like your call pre. but i dont think your point a) is valid. as this is the perfect spot for him to 4bet you light. which would argue for a 3bet actually. but in this setup i think i flat my entire range.

i forgot to say that hes decent, but i didnt think hes capable of 4beting light that often

Interesting spot. Some food for thought in the following bubble factors:

(1-Hero, 2-SB, 3-BTN, 4-CO)

X.XXXX 2.2843 1.4120 1.6462
1.9089 X.XXXX 1.3903 1.6105
1.0698 1.0742 X.XXXX 1.1075
1.1110 1.1191 1.1314 X.XXXX

The leftmost column is out BF vs the other players and the topmost row is the other players' BF vs us.

I think this means that against SB we need to get the last bet in if we're going all-in, so I like just flatting here.

I would bet turn when checked to though.

Would you be able to explain those 'numbers' to me? First time I see something like this. Can't really get it. Sorry

OTT I decided that I rather keep this hand as one of my bluff catchers, because if i bet turn and he calls, Im never good and would need to barrel river. And AK high is not a good cantidate to do this with IMO

Bubble factor is the "odds against" that the payout structure forces on you (to make it work you need to think about UK/US odds which are ratios rather than percentages/fractions).

Let's say you have to call 10 BB into a pot of 12, you are getting odds of 6:5, (so you need 45.45% equity (10/22) to make the call). The bubble factor is the number you use to "devalue" the existing money in the pot, to take account of money won being worth less than money lost in a tournament. So in the same example, if the BF was 1.5, you would need (6/1.5):5 = 4:5 or 55.56% chance of winning to make the call.

The way it's calculated is:
if stack A > stack B
BF for A vs B = ((ICM of A) - (ICM of A-B)) / ((ICM of A+B) - (ICM of A))
BF for B vs A = ((ICM of B) - (bustout prize)) / ((ICM of 2B) - (ICM of B))

- so the standard calculation is for an all-in situation.

There are also partial bubble factors, average bubble factors and pseudo bubble factors. But it's hard to do any of this in game.

The BFs of around 2 between us and villain mean that if the pot was laying us 2:1, we would need to think we had a (2/2):1 = 1:1 = 50% chance of winning against his range to make the call. In this example, if we raise to 19000 and he jams, we are calling 82000 into a pot of 120000 - after devaluation by the BF of 1.9 this is only worth 63000 so our required equity is 82000/(63000+82000) = 56-57%, which we don't have with AK against a range that 4-bets us, so if we 3-bet we have to fold to a 4-bet.

All the above basically means "don't play for stacks against the other big stack when 4-handed with 2 shorties".

I kinda get it. Didnt really came across this advanced math in icm spots tbh. All I used previously was my stack playability/payouts structure/edge in the remaining field etc. It seems like I was missing out on math involved. Sadly, its pretty diffucult to nail the math in game. (postgame, we can go for hrc icm or some solvers etc). Could you please send me some articles with this? Don't bother if you need to spend time looking for them, I can do it on my own. Just thought that you gotta have it as I dont think you would type those numbers from the top of your head lol. Thanks in advance dude. Really interesting stuff

The bubblefactor is explained in "Kill Everything" an old poker book about tournaments.

I get your bluffcatch gto reasoning. But i would bet this turn almost always. The chips on the table are particular valueable. And i would not give my opponent a free card to beat me. Besides you can get called with worse.

Looks like a good spot to 3b/gii pre.

wont we puke when he turns over 77s?

I'd puke if they turned over KK+. It's going to be fine against the 4-betting range we're up against which could well include 77, KK or a load of Ax we dominate.

I explained reasoning behind not 3beting this pre in OP. Still think in this particular spot flat >> 3bet/gii

+1, because

I think it just depends on the range of hands you are happy to gii pre with. I'm assuming you are happy to gii w/AA, even though you don't want to play for stacks with the other big-stack.

Taking a really passive line is going to let SB realise a lot of their equity when they don't really have to. Sure, we get some times when we have them dominated on an Axx or Kxx board, but we're also increasing the chances that we lose the pot and give up our big-stack.

There is also something to be said for ICM vs huge cEV gain in this spot as well.

just though he r/f too much and I get more value by flatting. Yes, we let him get there, but we also create a good bluffing spot for him imo. And I think, he knows that I can click buttons postflop, so he would attack some boards given the fact that he has a range advantage

END OF DISCUSSION¡!¡

What I really mean is don't flip for stacks.

Yeap specially if we´re on a soft table with weak players we can outplay postflop 25bb+ 4 handed in a turbo 180 SNGs is just pure gold to gample it pre on a fxxxxing flip or even a 60/40 situation when you´re playing against weak opponents.