Quote:
Originally Posted by tooms
Bumping an old thread i found with the search option..
Can someone give me his/her advice on where to start with learning ICM or how?
Sure! My background for credibility I've been playing for about 2 years and specialized in hyper 6s for some time with an ROI of about 10 to 15 % on sites like ignition, and BetOnline. Sample size is probably just over 2k for $1.00 to $3.50 stakes.
4 of the major factors to keep in mind and when learning these ICM spots. I wish I knew these first, before just drilling SnG coach over and over.
1. Bubble factor usually shown as ~1 to 3 from little ICM to a lot. 3 means you could need 75% equity to make a call for example. It can be lower than one if, for example, you have less than 2 BBs in the BB position.
2. ICM Priority. Related to bubble factor, it matters which stack we are facing a bet against. In a hyper 6, top 2 pay, 3 players remain and we are in 2nd place. We really want to face-off against the 3rd place player because if we knock him out, we guarantee we are in the money. Facing the 1st place shove is really rough, because if we bust, 3rd place gets ITM and if we win we still don't guarantee we are in the money.
3. Collision potential. It was hard looking at ICMIZER spots and curiously, my range was tight with 3 players remaining if I was on BTN and 1st place was in the SB and short stack was on the BB. Instead, if 1st place is in BB, then my range widens on the BTN. This is collision potential because depending on just how big the SB is and the size of the BB player, the SB 1st place could be pushing any 2, and 10% of the time, 20%, 25% etc. the BB player should be calling, and the the BB could lose, resulting in us getting ITM.
4. FGS. If we win a close spot and become a big stack, this can help us bully in a final table and get one of the top 1-3 spots. In hypers, take into account we are in BTN and about to be hit with the blind. Another option, is we are in SB pretty much tied for 1st place with the person in the BB. We may want to shove a bit wider because if we get the fold and chip up here, then in future BVB situations we can keep shoving and he has to risk busting with high BF (bubble factor), and we can keep chipping up.
ICMIZER SNG coach is great. I have the annual plan. The additional recommendation I'd make is use Anki
https://apps.ankiweb.net/ and focus on less spots, less questions per week/day and also see how changing if an opponent is wider/looser for a specific question. If you are going to spam questions, it's probably most helpful to do so for non-ICM short to mid stack situations that don't change so much from question to question. These are easier to learn, and can give you a bit of an edge, so it's a nice intro. Also keep in mind that heads up has no ICM, so you can really crush recreational players with a good strategy at the end of an SnG or MTT, if they are just way too passive, and going from 1st to 2nd is great for your profit.
Once you start using ANKI, you'll realize how little information you retain, and thus how important it is to use ANKI. ANKI is a digital flash card program that has an algorithm for to test you on cards that you are close to forgetting, or need to review. You may wake up one day and only have 20 cards of your 100 poker cards to review. Another day you may have only 10. It's also cool to see that once you review a card about 3-4 times in the span of a couple days/weaks, then it will wait a month or 2 to quiz you again, so you actually are retaining the information, and thus can actually use what you've learned at the table.
Note taking, develop a note system and use a HUD. Based on pool tendencies at your stake and bumper stickers in your HUD, it can become straight forward to bully tables where they are too tight, and exploit other players that you color code.
Very key color coding may include:
Pink, likes to gamble, shoves wide and calls wide.
Purple, very loose but does not call wide.
Green calling station.
Loose passive, may call to see a turn/river to see all the cards, the folds the river.
Aggro
I like having pink and purple the most. You may also want a general tag for weak players if you see them with a weird showdown, but don't know how to categorize them right away, and also a general, possible good reg. tag once you have a lot of hands on someone and they seem to be calling shoves correctly, etc.
Hope this is helpful! Let us know what games you're playing btw, STT, MTT SnG, MTT, or PKO, thanks!