Kind of annoys me that I've been playing for this long and don't have a rock solid strat around whether to flat or reshove v a short stack shove.

4 handed at FT yesterday evening,
Blinds 12/24/24 BB ante
UTG (175K) shoves, folded to
Hero (525K) in SB call with 77
BB (800K, older OMC) snap reshoves
Hero folds
BB has JJ, UTG has JTo

I flat as default in these spots but tbh don't know whether this is a reshove or flat. UTG range includes 22 and all Ax. BB range is pure JJ+AK - I've flatted both AA and QQ previously to ss shoves.

For any icm calcs we're at
26k 17k 11k 7k

Flat or shove 77?

And what's the full concise strat around whether to flat or reshove in similar spots?

Don't mean to be a pest but I think for accurate ICM, we need the 4th stack as well...

sigh pedant

750K

I like the flat if we know BB's shove range is JJ+/AK. Yes we will lose to some ridiculous hands like A8 that would have folded to our shove, but some hands that call might knock out the SS where we wouldn't.

Anyway, if BB is shoving wide I think we shove first.

Also, I have no problem with doing it both ways. Especially in environments where we are known. They will remember the shoves so when we don't shove with similar hands they won't put us on the sets/straights...

Anyway, the big picture is congratulations! And even though a 7 flopped, there is no shame in doing the right thing! Or did JJ claim he would have folded if you shoved? I doubt it anyway.

OMC who fold jj to a smaller stack are white whales-they supposedly exist but I have never seen one. I hear they will fold jj pre flop to a shove, but its a rumor they perpetuate. Flat and fold makes sense to me.

Was bb the big stack? Does he usually "soft play" against the all in short stack when their are Icm considerations? Does he make bad laydowns from the blinds against shoved short stacks? If yes, all factor into a fold.

When I run this is HER Calculator you play your entire range (15%) as a flat...i think it wants to iso specifically AJs at a high freq but could be a mistake?

Reason I asked for other (btn) stack is that it matters quite a bit if he's short. Just to check how much it affects our calling range, I gave btn 2bbs. Result was we now only call 7%, which is a huge difference.

RE: the full strat you may have to ask someone who knows more about ICM. I understand the principles and have software to give me gto outputs but not an expert.

I can post SS of calling range if ur interested. Seems like you played it fine.

Play seems fine as it implements ICM pretty well. No need to reshove "hoping" that bb doesn't wake up even if you are the second shortest stack. Staying alive and navigates to the highest point possible > "hoping" when you are 4left on a FT

Once we call from sb in that precise spot, is A8 a mandatory call for bb? Not sure abt that but I might be wrong.

I should have said A8s...

Was having trouble wrapping my head around why flat everything is the way to go but this makes sense.

I guess we have so few hands that are truly comfortable isoing due to ICM pressure that we actually cant have any isos 1. lest our flatting range become too weak 2. theres a possibility for an ICM disaster here

Especially with these stack configurations? If BB calls We can lose the side but UTG can ship the main and suddenly we're out in 4th despite being well in front of UTG stack size-wise?

Makes sense though. If we're isojamming in a non-ICM pure chipEV 4handed scenario (which we certainly are), it's to discourage BB from performing certain actions that he'd be able to profitably perform had we flatted, whilst posing ourselves little downside in doing so.

In the ICM iteration of the spot, the ICM does all of this for him/us

So is it possible to distil this down to a rule (of thumb) to decide where we should flat rather than shove ?

I’ve always shoved first if my entire flat range will call a reshove, but flatted if my range is split between call/fold on a reshove. Just seems arbitrary and non optimal though.

If you’d like to know the result:

It's like porn.

You'll know it when you see it.

I find that on final tables (you're asking about FTs specifically, I think?) typically your whole range seems to want to do one thing or another--i.e., your whole range will want to flat, or your whole range will want to rejam. Admittedly, I haven't done much work to prove this, but it's what my math/icm intuitions suggest to me.

It seems like the main idea here is that normally (non final table) we have flatting ranges and reshoving ranges-the flatting ranges are the weakest hands (which don't want to overcommit) and the strongest hands (which want to induce whilst simultaneously protecting the other part of the range). Then, the reshoving ranges, which are hands of strengths that fall in between, which want to shove to discourage zany plays from those behind whilst still being allin vs. the shover

On FTs, it seems like the ICM reverses this bifurcation process. As such, our range that wants to play still chooses between {flat/iso}, but now all hands that want to play fall into one or the other, as opposed to spreading across both options.

I *think* this is because now the weakest hands from before don't want to play at all (ICM makes us all a bit tighter, ceteris paribus). So now consider that our middle strength hands want to either reshove or flat--completely situation dependent. But regardless of what they want to do, without the weak hands there that want to do the opposite, the strong hands must mimic the middle strength hands, for range construction purposes.

Does any of this make sense? I'm more theorizing than proselytizing, and this is the first time I've formally explained something that has sort of hovered in my poker subconscious for a while now.

hey

if you`re sure his range is JJ/AK then but I think your history seems a bit irrelevant for specific spot 4handed vs 7bb shove since a lot of people would be able to figure your range can be wide and would widen their reship range when you call.

Its not just ev, its also amount of VAR you`ll get.
to peel AQ and got rejammed by 44 would suck right (for Aq specifically).


so I think these are odd statements.

yes you should just add a structure for our "strong hands" based on their removal effects (in application to bb range), equities and equity distribution vs different bb reship ranges to figure what "strong" are good for protecting calling range and what are better to shove ourseleves.


you mean HRC erc?
I guess your sim implies bb will have an over-call range (and then it goes hot/cold) which he prolly won`t have in fact.

Yah HoldemResources Calc...RE the overcall range I dont think I checked the box to allow overcalls probably b/c it was so unlikely to happen as you said. I dont think it would change Hero's Calling Range much but I would have to run it again

Seems like an easy shove. I wouldn't call/fold 1/3 of my stack like that.