Hey everyone,

I've been wanting to learn more about MTT strategy from a theoretical standpoint and I'm wondering if there's any resources which could help me to discern how non push/fold preflop ranges should shift with ICM and different stack depths.

There is a lot of software (ICMizer, HRC etc) which can give ranges for push/ fold situations where postflop equity realization is not relevant, but this is not very helpful for a huge range of spots which make up most MTT preflop strategy. Do you guys have any tools or resources you use to help answer questions such as "how should my open range from the button change with 60BB versus 25BB" or "how should I adjust my 3Bet range given this particular ICM situation" beyond intuitively working it out or asking other people? At the moment my knowledge of how preflop ranges should be constructed given different stack depths and ICM situations comes from a scattering of articles, books, videos and forum posts. I feel that there could easily be big flaws with how I construct some of my ranges without me ever realising.

I realise that there is no neat set of preflop solutions for situations where postflop play is relevant, but if there are any resources you could recommend that you use to review your preflop plays in MTTs from a theoretical standpoint then that would be very helpful.

The GTO of ante and non-ante ranges with different stack sizes. There are charts also, and softwares, probably for ICM also. Some tourney books consider the real ranges also that you face preflop and the training sites can have and have some material about it.

There are also the theoretical considerations when one is committed and what it means to you ranges and sizes. The big, medium and small stacks facing each other in different situations.

The basic gist of it is that as stacks get shorter hands that rarely make the nuts go down in value (65s) and hands that often make decent pairs (K9o) go up in value. This is because the lower the SPR, the more hands meet the minimum required equity to stack off. Open ranges also contract as stacks get shallower due to the threat of 3bet jams. At ~25bb 3bet jamming becomes so powerful that limping is necessary.

The question of ICM is extremely complicated because you're dealing with a multiplayer equilibrium and that means that non-rational agents can disturb the equilibrium and damage not only their ev, but also the ev of the player following the equilibrium. For example it is well known that the big stack is allowed to open extremely wide against middle stacks due to ICM pressure. But if you're just blindly following that theory against a player who is disregarding ICM, then entering into confrontations with him will just lead to the both of you losing EV to everyone else at the table. Basically much more important than knowing the equilibrium ICM range, is knowing how the ICM range expands or contracts as a function of the tendencies of the remaining players left to act. Said in another way, it's the balancing act between stealing the blinds as much as possible, while also avoiding confrontations as much as possible.

Yeah this all makes a lot of sense. Of course just blindly following theory without really thinking about the situation and opponents will always lose out on a lot of EV.

However, I think the problem I'm having at the moment is that there are a lot of very general guidelines out there for how ranges should be constructed in MTTs, but there are a huge range of different situations which are possible and it's really hard to discern where my preflop mistakes are being made.

For general theory guidelines I can use things like PioSolver postflop and things like ICMizer for push/fold decisions. There are also a lot of really great videos and training resources which cover these decisions in a lot of depth. However, it seems to me that there is a lack of specific software or information for other preflop decisions. Of course just being lazy and plugging hands into software isn't my goal but I think it can be useful as a starting point to help give theoretical guidelines to your plays. If there's anywhere specific you'd recommend to learn more about these decisions then that'd be much appreciated

You can find MTT preflop solutions in a few places such as https://rangeconverter.com or https://www.monkerguy.com/

Thanks for these. Will definitely consider getting some. They're definitely quite pricey but I guess it does make sense because those solutions need to be calculated with servers and couldn't be done on a pc.

Hey,

I'm happy to answer any questions on the preflop ranges - sizings chosen, servers used, RAM required to calculate them etc. They are all accessible in the web browser, so any device with a web browser will be able to view them. There's also ICM covered for the average payouts of popular tournament.

Using those solved preflop ranges we've also simmed all the HU parts of the gametrees for all 1755 flops and will gradually be releasing access to that data as and extension of the browsable gametrees. Where you can instantly see what the PioSolver strategy is across all flops for a given spot, and how specific flops or flop groups deviate from the average strategy - this is in place for cash already.

I think it's hard for me to post too much without it coming across as advertisment ( already has ), but i'm happy to reply via PM if you need any more info.

Thanks,

Craig.

Wow solving over all the flops must take a huge amount of RAM.

I'd be interested to know about how you form the ranges from actions which occur before the play gets down to heads up. Are they just based on assumptions or is there some way to solve for these as well?