I'm new to sng and ICM and get very confused in a lot of hands. I'm using sng wiz to help me along the way, but Sng wiz couldnt analyse this because there are 2 players all in.

Should I fold AK here and hope that the button busts and the UTG shortstack busts next hand, or is this an easy call? Thanks


[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $1 Buy-in (600/1,200 blinds, 75 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 9 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #8799472

BTN: 3,367 (2.8 bb)
Hero (SB): 5,662 (4.7 bb)
BB: 9,580 (8 bb)
UTG+1: 2,797 (2.3 bb)
UTG+2: 8,750 (7.3 bb)
MP1: 13,105 (10.9 bb)
MP2: 7,202 (6 bb)
MP3: 4,005 (3.3 bb)
CO: 13,032 (10.9 bb)

Preflop: (675) Hero is SB with K A
5 folds, CO raises to 12,957 and is all-in, BTN calls 3,292 and is all-in, Hero???

meh, with your stack i'd probs say this is a fistpump (since mincashing is only 2 bucks) but i could be wrong

With the blinds getting high and our stack size, it's an easy call. We're usually ahead of his range here, unless you have some reads on him that tag him as a nit but even then we can't afford to fold with such a strong hand. Hit me up when ya see me on the tables (Same name as on here)! GL

You're stack is way too small and the blinds are way too big to wait any longer, get it in.

You're way too short to consider folding here, even if it is slightly -$EV which it probably isn't.

Call.

Just play it as a cEV spot imo. ICM doesn't really matter at this stage, its assumptions and limitations can be misleading. And with such short stacks, definitely +cEV to get it in here.

This.

Don't second guess yourself. Especially at these stakes is it ever rarely a mistake not to fold pre with our AK here.

get it in and hope u got him crushed

Thanks for the input on the op. I always play these spots like icm and will play it as cEV as you suggest from now on.

Thanks for the input, I had a similar spot today that I thought was a call but Sng wiz says its horrible. Using $EV this looks especially bad, using cEV it looks kind of marginal/bad too depending on the range I use for UTG.

Say for example my hand was AK, should I always be making a +cEV call here even if ICM hates it and my stack can afford a fold (unlike the op hand)?
Thanks again.

I'd call the second hand as well. I wouldn't really worry about ICM when your at 8 players. Even though 7 pays I'd rather look at it +cev because in such a low stakes tourney these players are going to give you so many opportunities to make chips that I wouldn't worry about that 7th place bubble so much as I would once you get down to 3 or 4 players. It's safe to say if you win this hand against this level of competition that you're going to get at least top 3 nearly every time.

Remember that Wiz is only as good as the ranges you give it. Don't use the default ranges. Anyway, even if you had the correct ranges in there, it might still give you a "wrong" anwer if you're using $EV. Use it as cEV at this stage for any normal situation. If it tells you that this AQ hand is -cEV then you've probably got the ranges wrong. And you should almost never be folding AK when you have less than 8 bigs.

Sorry to bump an old thread but I have a question about this.

It would've never even crossed my mind to use cEV in the AQ hand. Could you elaborate more about when should I use $EV and when cEV in 45s, please?

45s differ from most normal MTTs in that reaching the final table doesn't mean that you've made the money. However, they are like other MTTs in that the majority of the prize money is still in the top spots, and missing the odd mincash in pursuit of a +cEV spot for a big stack, and a good shot at a top two finish, is likely to be more profitable in the long run than turning down those chips and just sneaking inside the bubble to go out in 7th. With the exception of satellites which award several tickets, cEV should still be the overriding factor for this stage of all MTTs. Maybe in the rare event of some extraordinarily unbalanced stacks it may be profitable to consider playing a little tighter, but these should be very rare events indeed. By extreme I mean something like perhaps you and one other have ~25k chips each, and the other seven have ~2k chips, and the blinds are 800/1600. Then you would obviously not want to clash with the other big stack but most 45 FTs don't look like that.

To attempt to answer your actual question, you need to think more about $EV as the final table progresses, but I'm afraid that it's still as vague as that as far as I'm concerned. I don't personally have a hard and fast rule about how many players left before I switch from one to the other, I just assess each situation as it comes up, considering such factors as stack depth, perceived ability of opponents, my perceived image, momentum.

Remember that ICM has its own limitations, such as an inability to appreciate position at the table, the hazard of the approaching blinds, the loss of fold equity with a shrinking stack, the skill advantage of deeper stacks, and so on. Ultimately, there is no substitute for experience, and maintaining flexibility in your approach to the game is essential. Practice at the tables, allied with study away from them, is likely to be your best strategy here, as well as talking with other good poker players.

Another thing to consider, albeit it's not mathematical, is that in these $1 turbos people are often making plays at the blinds and antes with marginal hands. From my experience it's hard to find not just a rotation but a HAND where one person doesn't go all in hoping to pick up the dead money. With AK/AQ I'd snap off a call almost 100% unless you have a read.