Hey everyone. Long time cash player who has been dipping my toes into the world of MTTs. I get most of the strategy but what I'm struggling with is the final table and how to factor in the steep payout increases into my decisions.

Let's say you're down to 6 players from a tournament of several hundred. You're somewhere in the middle of the pack with 11 or 12BBs. There's a couple of short stacks with less than 10BB and the couple of players ahead of you have maybe 15 or 16BBs. 6th pays out 15 BIs with a very steep increase up to 1st which pays out over 100 BIs.

You're sitting in the BB with ATo. It folds round to BTN who open shoves for 10BB. What's your play?

Like, I'm certain ATo has his range beat. He'll have a ton of weaker aces which you dominate, plenty of Kx and Qx and then a bunch of coinflips, and only a few hands which dominate you. That being said, you probably have at best 60% or 65% chance to win against his range. Is it worth taking the risk when you could easily just pass the hand and continue stealing blinds where you can and almost certainly outlast a couple of the small stacks? Or do you just get it in when you think you're ahead and let variance do it's thing?

I can imagine that shoving yourself is way better than calling an all-in, because any situation which has a possible outcome of everyone else folding and you collect a few BBs and last a bit longer seems way better than a situation where you either bust or double up. But I don't really know, that's just what my gut says.

If anyone has any insight or a link to a good article or something which explains how you should be playing these situations, it'd be massively appreciated. Thanks.

So what you're describing are the essential concepts behind making ICM adjustments, which you actually do seem to have an instinctive grasp of already. You're absolutely right that shoving is far preferable to calling. Because of the pay jumps and resultant risk premium for putting your stack at risk, fold equity becomes much more valuable and calling ranges become much tighter. You need significantly higher equity to call a shove than you would by cEV, especially when you are putting your own stack so substantially at risk. At the final table, real-money equity starts to diverge substantially from chip EV, and losing a big pot can often cost you a lot more equity than winning it will gain you.

I don't know of any good ICM training resources for free, though. ICMizer used to have a free option but doesn't anymore. I've done some manual ICM calcs through PT4 (as best as I can), by just getting the ICM calcs for the current stack sizes and then recalculating based on what they'd be if I won or lost the hand. Dara O'Kearney's Endgame Poker Strategy has good material on how to make ICM adjustments at a final table, but again, not free (but not that expensive either).

In the actual hand, it's close. I think it might be a call because button should be shoving every Ax hand for the blocker, but you don't even really want to get it in against something like KQs and certainly not a pair. But it's probably at the bottom of your calling range. The fact that you can bust someone and lock up a pay jump makes it easier to call than if your stack was at risk. I don't know what the ranges are exactly, and you didn't post the payouts, but I think you're probably at the bottom of your calling range here.

I ran this sample shoving range:

22-99, A2s+, A2o+, K4s+, K9o+, Q8s+, QTo+, JTs, T9s, 98s

(assuming TT+ raise/calls, although I'm not sure how accurate that is, considering I even have AKs shoving here)

and you're almost 58% against that range. Which I would bet is pretty close with how condensed all the stack sizes are, but I suspect this is on the bottom side of your calling range. I'm not sure, though, and some more rigorous ICM analyzer could give you a better answer.

This is really really useful, thank you. You've given me some terms/concepts I wasn't even away of (ICM, cEV vs $EV) so that will be a great starting point for doing some Googling and learning. Good to hear that my intuition was roughly right though! Thanks again

Naths post hits the concepts for you. Also recognize the differences between making final table as small stack, over whelming chipleader (50% or more) chip leader (30%) and medium stack and how it would change/affect your goals.

My general goals when hitting a final table are:

1. Making top 3, that's where the money is
2. Having "first in fold equity" vs calling it off.
3. Try to never play an all in hand with someone who has more chips and can knock you out. (Obviously hard to do).
4. Be more aggressive with medium stacks because they are the most passive. Tangle w chip leader only when necessary, don't get trapped in a hand with chip leaders. Take out small stacks when only risk is small stack elimination- ie don't build side pots when you can eliminate a player in multiway pots.
5. Know everyone's chip count at all times

If I have a read on the player and I know that he is shoving any Ax here with < 12 bb's (as I would do) then ATo is a call and so is A9o and A8s. However, if Villain hasn't been shoving much with under 15 blinds and/or has show a minraise hand of Ax at showdown, then ATo is likely not in my calling range here.

I don't believe in ICM (which probably puts me in a class of stupidity all by myself) because it doesn't account for the difference in post flop play when you have more chips. It is a good thing to know ICM ranges in situations where I don't have a clue what my opponent has, but I prefer taking chances when we are at the final table until there are 3 or 4 players left. Because I want a shot to win.

I also think that what jjjou said is critical, I much prefer being first all in with Fold Equity than calling with marginal hands that may have barely +EV.

The other thing to understand is that many players are unfamiliar with range adjustments when there are 6 or fewer players left. Some players do play in 6-max tournaments but they are likely younger players. I find that people don't expand their ranges enough short handed.

I ran some numbers on ICMizer. I assumed a payout structure of 100,70,50,35,25,16. Stack sizes as you mentioned.

If you fold, you have equity of 49. If you call and lose you get 16. If you call and win, you have 70.5. You are risking 33 to win 21.5. You need about 60.55% equity to call here.

This ignores at least 3 factors:

1. You have just paid the BB, so are well positioned for the next few hands (very important with this stack depth)
2. If you call and win, you call bully the medium stacks.
3. If you fold, you will continue with a shove stack. If you are better than the field at this, you will gain massive EV by playing the 10BB stack as well.

Well, that's not true. I don't have a solver that has really strong postflop ICM tools myself, but I mentioned Endgame Poker Strategy in my first post, and there's quite a bit about postflop adjustments and how your lines change as the covering stack vs. the covered stack.

As far as ICM in general-- you play poker to make the most money, right? That's all it's about, is how to adjust your play when the pay jumps are relevant in order to make the decisions that make the most money. I believe in that, myself.

Nice analysis.

Without considering any future game, if my shoving range I posted above is accurate, that puts a calling range at 88+, AJs+, AQo+. ATs and AJo are barely folds.

Yes, that looks right. I'd lean towards more folds than might be optimal, unless I have a strong sense that Villain is shoving correctly. I also prefer to chip up via my own steals in this spot, rather than the big flips. (FWIW, the twice in recent tournaments I shoved a hand that was a pip or two too wide.)

I like running these numbers to help my intuition, as I am not a good memorizer of charts, see above, but I think I am getting closer as time goes by.

It's more important to get calling than shoving ranges right in these spots, too. Because so much of the value of shoving is in getting folds, your EV doesn't drop a ton if you shove one pip too wide. Calling one pip too wide can be a significant error, though.

(ATs and AJo, FWIW, were both above 60% but less than 60.55%. I think AJs/AQo both cleared 62% which probably makes them a solid edge to take when calling here.)

I think "Kill Everyone" is still worth reading as it gives a good explanation of why bubble factor / ICM factor is different for different stack sizes - so it is particularly high for mid stacks as in this case ( even higher if it was a bigger stack shoving) - which is why the calling range is so tight