I played this a few weeks back, dont remember exact details including my hand, but close enough.

I believe this was a $60 satty into a $630 on ACR. 32 left, 21 seats. I was in the 18-20th range with ~20bb.

I was in the BB and it folded to a big stack in the sb (>50bb) and he shoves

What is our calling range looking like here? How much should ICM effect us.

My mindset on the situation was, if I get a double up here, I am very likely to cash. (~85-90% barring some cooler situations) So my equity in the pot needs to be a little more than the odds of me cashing if I fold. I gave myself roughly 50/50 to fold and still cash from this position, but I have no idea if I am under or overestimating my short stack game.

This means I need about 55% equity against villains shove range to make the call. I ended up making the call with a medium pp and lost the flip. But I thought that it was an interesting spot.

I don't like calling off 20xBB at that stage of a satellite.

Hard to know the exact call off percentage you need, but I am reasonably sure it is much higher than 55%

if he has good understanding he's going to be shoving super light there specifically because you can't call here barring an absolute monster

we need more info ie average stack size, your current standing etc but a lot can happen between now and why you are going to be forced to shove

small pocket pair terrible for this spot since at best it's a coin flip and sometimes you'll be dominated

snap fold imo, but had he limped or just raised it's a snap shove because then you have fe

Average was like 25bb I think. Short stacks were in the 5-10bb range and I was one of many people in the 20bb range. 15th probably had no more than 25bb and 25th had about 15bb.

I think I had 88 but might have had 77 or 99 as well. I would have folded 66 or worse for sure.

Obv if 20bb is a top 10 stack and there are a bunch of <10bb stacks then we are folding most everything

Or if we were much closer to the money with 22 or 23 left.

But I am used to getting to this point in a satty where the avg stack is like 10bb and the short stacks have <4-5 blinds, not a spot like this where a bunch of people have 15-25bb. There is still a lot of play left.

I am just mostly unsure how to estimate my odds of cashing from this position if I fold, which is the baseline to compare to. If my odds of cashing by calling > odds of cashing after folding then I should call.

As far as villain's range, he seemed competent and had kinda aggro stats over a small sample. I put him on a 20-25% range (any pair, Ax, or Broadways), he maybe should be even wider.

I will try to play around with ICMizer tonight and see how different stack situations effects our calling range.

Hero did say medium PP, which does give him some hands he dominates (I assume 66-88 is 'medium').

I think looking at each individual hand as "if I succeed here what are my chances of cashing" is going to be a leak because you can easily double up here and still not cash for totally independent reasons.

It's a reasonable mindset to have for "if I double up here what does that mean for rest of this orbit" so it'll be very helpful when on the literal bubble. However, once you get further away than that it becomes a logical graveyard where you begin imagining outcomes you really aren't equipped to accurately predict and the exercise becomes more a confirmation bias than anything objective.

But isn't that what ICM analysis for a completely flat payout structure does?

I see your point that its really hard to accurately make those estimations in real time, but how else are we supposed to try to determine the cut off points in real time. Poker study is all about trying to make imperfect assumptions as accurate as possible.

I very well may be overestimating my odds of cashing if I double up, and that would increase the equity needed to make a call.

Honestly, OP, I don't think there is a wrong answer in this spot. Calling and folding are both defensable moves if you are heads up with a pair like 77's against a bully stack close to the bubble. However, if almost a third of the remaining players have to go before you secure a seat, as is the case here, I would lean towards accepting the bet, figuring that in all likelihood I am flipping for the pot.

77 is usually good versus a SB open shove, because the SB can have Ax and small pps, and rarely has TT+. Here the SB can have all sort of junk, assuming he is incorrectly trying to bully with a big stack.

However, there are flat payouts, so the ICM effect is a huge issue. You may be underestimating your chance of cashing if you fold. I would fold, but it may be fairly close because 77 is so strong versus his range.

Just ran some ICMizer on this spot and messed around with average stack sizes and distributions

I tried to create stack distributions that most closely replicate the stack distributions. Avg stack 27bb, our stack 18bb, short stack had 5bb and increased pretty linearly up from that. That sim gave 88+, with 88 and 99 being barely +$EV

Every sim had villains range as any 2.

When I gave bb a 18bb stack and changed the average stack to 10bb with a bunch of med stacks (7-13bb). bb folds 100%

with a 18bb stack and 15bb avg its JJ+

with a 18bb stack and 20bb avg its 99+

9bb stack and 10bb avg its 99+

9bb stack and 15bba avg we start to open up again with 15%

9bb stack and 20bb avg bb calling 30%. ICM is not a concern at all here for the bb and the sb even fold a couple hands, only shoving 98%.


So the pattern that I am drawing is that its the ratio of our stack to the average stack that determines just how tight we are playing. Thats something I have always felt intuitively but interesting to see some data back it up. Im kinda surprised that AK doesnt call until that goes <1.

Also it seems that in general I vastly underestimated the equity needed to call in this spot specifically. 88 has 69% equity vs any2 and its the bottom of the range for the sim of the hand.

Interesting stuff, I don't know about any two for villains range, I'd say absolute max is top 75% and more reasonable top 40%

I wouldn't take everything from software as accurate. It tends to tell you to call too tight. However, here in a satellite, 77 is a fold.

I don't think the big stack should be pushing ATC. That is assuming BB will call as tight as software recommends. In general, the big stack should play fairly tight and not overdo bullying, as all places pay the same. Also, SB has other options with 20xBB than push/fold. I wouldn't put SB on ATC at all.

Its worth noting that the EV of shoving is flat and very small for everything. I set payouts at $100 to keep it simple. When the avg stack was 10bb the EV was $.05. As the avg stack increased, the EV of shoving increased as well, until the bb started having a short stack relative to avg, then it started to normalize where the strong hands were higher EV than the weak ones.

Its not too unreasonable either to basically sit out when you have a big stack relative to the average. We are talking about gaining a nickel in EV by shoving. Maybe not actually sit out since the whole table sees that and can adjust, but just fold everything and collect your money later.