Hi all,

I'd like to master STT's and plan to use the 2+2 poker while trying to achieve this. It kind of sucks to find out this part of the forum seems completed dead but I'll try anyway.

I've bought ICMizer 3 and started reviewing some (actually aiming to put them all through the auto-analyze feature) and I am more or less pleased with the results. Most of the time my ICM pushes and folds aren't too far from where they should be without too much practice (at the moment). I've played some sng's and mtt's years ago and apparantly some of that hasn't been completely forgotten.

Most of the 'mistakes' are related to me pushing too tight according to ICMizer. However...

ICMizer assumes everybody plays perfect according ICM but at this level actually none of the players do (I guess). No one pushes nearly as wide as ICMizer suggests and for calling I don't really have a clue as my samplesize played SNG's is too small to draw conclusions. I guess at this stakes villain could be doing whatever without considering ICM, bubbleplay, ...

I could play around with the ranges but to be honest I don't really have a good idea about how villains are thinking or how they construct them. So I'm in the dark how to properly adjust.

For now I've been playing around with the MTT-coach (the former SNG-coach) to practice my push-fold game but I'm not sure how this will help me when my villains might not even by aware of the whole concept of it.

For now I have been looking into the stickies of the forum, reading Moshman's SNG-strategy and played a couple of 100 of them. Posting hands will follow.. What else is there to do to master this format? What is the best thing I should focus on for now?


Looking forward to hear from you.

It sounds like, you are pretty well on your way already. As for figuring out player pool tendencies, there is really no other way that to play a lot, since it will be different from stakes to stakes or site or site or even depend on the time of day, you play. I recommend using a tracker, if its allowed on your favourite site. This should help you to figure out, who the regulars are, and if they have any tendencies, you can exploit. Maybe some are 3-betting very tight, and then you can overfold to their 3-bets, and so on and so forth.

Welcome to the grind. As said, you are already on a good way.

What's important now is that you start looking at how people play and adjust accordingly. Finding out player pool tendencies.

For example, recs will usually call too wide, regs will usually call too tight. At least at the lower stakes. Though there are situations where the reverse is true.

It's important to understand these things because as you figured out already it will allow you to adjust ranges in ICMIZER correctly and learn the proper ranges. It can make a huge difference.

It's generally a good idea to play with those ranges just to get a better feeling, allowing you to adjust your ranges on the spot.

Feel free to post hands, there are still good players giving good advice here, albeit rare.

I went from playing a couple of 100 to playing a 1.000 now. I'm getting the hang of it. However I still have no clue how to actually use ICMizer. I've been practicing the quizes but I'm not even sure it helps while playing 0.5$'s and & 1$'s. The tighter I've got the more I seem to get my ROI up but I'm not really getting much of hard knowledge or insights it seems. What use is ICMizer if my villains are kind of random? If i'm asked to give a range for certain spots, I wouldn't be able come up with one. Let alone to make one up for my villains based on the stats I have for them.

Instead of focusing on the push-fold part where the real difference is made, I focused on getting the early and mid game kind of fixed. As I got tighter early and mid game, I stopped shoving crap later on as well. That seemed enough to beat the lowest stake but I really should figure out how to get my actual questions answered. At the moment my push-fold game/ calling all-ins is based on gut feeling but I'm not sure how far that is going to bring me.

Can someone give some directions for further improvement please?

I found the MTT coach feature to be very helpful. Knowing what to do at equilibrium is good but you need to aware of population tendencies (usually calling and jamming too tight) so you can make the obvious adjustments

If someone calls and pushes to tight, I'm not completely sure how to adapt. If I in turn start to push wider, I pick up more blinds and dead money but tend to loose all when I get called. If I in turn tighten up my pushing ranges myself there is no advantage and we're at an equilibrium again?

I do understand to tighten up my calling ranges as I'm up against stronger ranges.

Yes, I'm new to this. If I'm playing like ICMizer recommends I tend to bust earlier than when I follow my gut feeling as I pick up more small pots uncontested but go bust when get called down more.

For a shove to be profitable it needs to have a positive expected value (EV). For marginal shoving hands, you need to expect to win more from the dead money, than what you lose from when they call you (push fold EV is pretty easy to calculate by hand actually).

If players call too tight then you should shove some more hands. Yes, when you get called you will lose more money on average, but you will get called less often overall. Also, this is more than made up for by how much more you are winning from them folding.

In practice, it's very rare that players call too tight in ICM spots IMO, mostly it's the other way round (especially fish). In chipEV spots (like heads up), players tend to call shoves too tight.

I think I might be to eager to start my push-fold game. I have the impression I lose more SNG's buy pushing wide than I improve my overall chances to actually get ITM or win them. I hit more walls than picking up dead money and blinds.

It could be a bias though. It is easier to remember to go bust than picking up small pots. I have no clue how to check this in my database. Any suggestions?

Its fairly simple in theory.

If you dont adjust ICMizer ranges, it will give you the equilibrium play assuming everyone plays perfect.
Obviously they arent and as such its suggestions will be off. Fairly off actually.

There is no simple way of learning it, because ICM can be counterintutive.
The most you can do in conceptualising it, will be finding certain stack size distributions which occur frequently and understand what they mean in terms of Equity.
For example:
1 Bigstack - 3 equal stacks -> Bigstack will dominate the bubble, equal stacks should call super tight.
2 Bigstacks - 2 equal stacks -> Somewhat similiar, but here suddenly the position plays a huge factor. Its a vastly different situation if youre sitting across, before or behind.
1 Bigstack - 2 mid stacks - 1 short stack -> Bigstack shoves wide and calls tight, mid stacks should shove somewhat tight and call very tight, shortstack should shove wide (assuming he still has FE) and call "wider".

Once you have a few basic setups in mind, you can start figuering out when to shove wide, when to shove tight and likewise with calling.
Next step is starting to understand how stack positions start factoring in.
Then you will start bringing players tendencies in.
And in the last step, you would want to understand how stack distribution affects your future EV and therefore figure out how to manipulate other players stacks to your liking (if given the chance).

Essentially, whenever you look at a hand, you want to know the equlibrium play.
Then you want to check what happens if your opponents call wider, what if they call tighter? What if they call really wide? What if they call really tight?....
How does my future EV look in the various outcomes? Does ICM undervalue/overvalue the situation?...

More and more youll start getting an understanding why this hand is shove and another on first glance seamingly similiar hand is not.