Hey, I've been playing online poker over the last 3 years and this winter some new ICM concepts have been introduced to the community, basically stating that ICM pressure starts even when e.g. 75% of the field is still left.
Now I've been studying so far mostly on chip EV ranges and for example in the course I have (pads on pads), he never really applied such a concept himself. Does anyone have a good take on whether or not high stakes pros have been incorporating these strategies lately? I just would like to know how proven these new ICM ranges/concepts are or whether it's only an advance of certain poker schools (don't want to mention them now) to "disrupt" and sell new ranges etc.
Would be happy if we can start a productive thread here as I haven't really been seeing a discussion on what pros do in this regards.

I have no idea if pros are using this or not.

Personally I don't believe in ICM. Mathematically it is correct. But in terms of value of chips I believe it underestimates the value of chips in terms of what type of actions you can take post flop especially when you go from under 25 blinds to over 50 blinds.

There are many situations where it is worth following. Where winning a hand may not give you a substantial difference in future strategy.

With 75% of the field still left, no I wouldn't care.

Can't really say what other people are doing, but I suspect almost no one is making wild ICM adjustments that early. And its a zero-sum game so if it is an error to ignore, well when everyone errs then no one really errs.

It's certainly a novel way to try and differentiate yourself--potentially for the better, and potentially for the worse.

ICM starts to apply right away, but it doesn't have a strong impact. Chips you win are worth slightly less than chips you lose. So you shouldn't take a pure 0 cEV gamble. But if a spot is profitable by cEV it's almost certainly correct to take. You don't really need to worry about reducing variance until the bubbles, or perhaps if you're deep enough into the tournament and have a huge stack facing another huge stack.

Thank you all for your constructive answers. I agree with your points, have looked a bit deeper into it yesterday as well and while the masses of (studying) people seem to adopt these new ranges and suggestions, there's good arguments to be made that the new ranges are becoming worthless if your opponent doesn't follow the same icm considerations as this would shift your own. As with all the different stacksizes for population these become pretty impossible to implement. Probably best to stick to close to bubble and close to/FT icm adjustments, while not taking marginal spots in cEV if you give yourself an edge over the field.

Im aiming for 1st place until its imperative that i survive. Sometimes cashing a game is more probable than winning 1st place money to the effect that survival lines are more profitable than the line that risks my last chip.

Theoretical ICM adjustments in early stages are generally pretty subtle. At 75% of the field, you might be slightly tighter opening because you do have a risk premium, although it's usually pretty small (like less than 2%).

The other thing you're supposed to from an ICM perspective is call less pre and do more 3-betting. You'll see a lot of ICM sims, even at 75% of the field remaining, where you'll be more inclined to pure 3-bet hands that you might otherwise flat. For example, look at these two ranges in GTOWizard - they're both basically 60BB CO vs. LJ open ranges, except one is an iCM sim and the other one is cEV:





The thing you'll notice is that you roughly 3-bet the same amount (7.3% at cEV, 8.2% in ICM), but you flat significantly less in an ICM sim. You'll see this in a lot of ICM sims, whether it be ICMIZER, HRC, etc.

The argument is that ICM doesn't take into account future game play, post-flop edge, etc. Because of that, I wouldn't say that making significant adjustments for ICM - especially deeper stacked - is a particularly good idea. But I do think that some subtle adjustments, like finding more 3-bets and doing a little less calling, definitely has merit.

Perhaps worth noting that even the difference between 7.3% and 8.2% means you're 3-betting about 13% more often in an ICM situation than a pure cEV situation.

That is true. I think the big elements of the range that change in an ICM sim are introduction of some pure suited Ax wheel 3-bets and the dropping off of a lot of other suited hands. It’s much more of a polar strategy.

Yeah, my point is more just that it's easy to look at the percentages out of 100% and think there's not much difference, so I feel like it helps to remember what the actual difference in practice is.

Like, for another example, the difference between 25% equity and 30% equity may not seem like much, but the latter you win 20% more often than the former.