ive started grinding 6max hypers since a month or two. And i would like to discuss a situation that occurs again and again.

3 players left (bubble). one big stack, two med stacks. if the big stack is a reg he is shoving like crazy at this point, and the two mid stacks try to out live each other. if you follow icm in these spots there is just not much else you can do (as mid stack). This particular setup is so good for the big stack, and very bad for the mid stacks (because in effect you already give up first place). So i was wondering, is it justified to take a slight -$EV spot to increase you chances of NOT being the mid stack in this situation.

For example:

B: 13bb
SB: 7bb
BB: 8bb

Button shoves and we are in the BB. At this moment in time our stack the difference between the big stack and the mid stacks is not enormous. But if we fold, and the button gets a walk the next hand the difference is already quite substantial. And the B can henceforward probably shove every hand, and we have to battle for second place.

Say ICM says we can call with AT,66,KQs (just a sample range here, i did not check it)...now A8-A9, 55-44 are then probably slightly -$EV.


So my question is. Isnt it better to "make a stand" here with these type of hands.

Dunno if I make any sense at all. lol, ive just started with this format

The problem with taking a stand in situations where villain can shove atc or close to it is that by expanding your range slightly their response to your adjustment is often going to be to continue to play that same strategy. There aren't actually that many situations where your adjustment can be so manipulative, and usually there isn't a good reason to do that.

By making these calls you just donate equity to the other medium stack allowing him to get itm with a slightly higher frequency. You also miss out on any potential poor strategies that the other medium stack villain is using. If he's not a great player and missing obvious shoves or limp folding btn with a shallow stack or other things like that you're actually going to be incentivized to call a bit tighter than normal against the big stack.

I understand where you coming from, and your point is valid. Trouble is, it's too late at this stage in the game to take stands here. I do think it's worth gambling a bit earlier in the game, so you arrive at this spot as the dominant stack. If 50% of time you bust 4th, and the other 50% your 3rd with a good chip lead, you're doing well!

A way of looking at these spots is this:

If you know it ends in a folding war for 2nd place, you can try to estimate the equity you have in that event in the end. Obviously due to you both folding each time, CLs euqity rises.

So technically you can make any -ev call here, that is above the estimated euqity you have in case of a folding war.

13-7-8 with 65/35 you have 30%, if fold to 20-2-2 its down to 20%.

so your saying you do make negative ev calls in order to avoid such a folding war?

in my scenario we have a single bb more then the other shorty. that probably does affect our strategy. If we were the 7bb player, we should take even more negative ev spots right?

i experimented with FGS, in the example above, vs B shove:
SB CALL BB CALL
FGS=0 9,4% 16,8%
FGS=1 7,8% 20,0%
FGS=2 14.9% 16.2%
FGS=3 12.5% 19.9%
FGS=4 9.7% 22.0%
FGS=5 15.8% 17.0%
FGS=6 14.6% 19.6%
FGS=7 12.1% 21.1%

I wouldnt call it negative ev, but yes. Given that you will lose equity in the upcoming hands, a "negative" call now can be better than a "positive" call later.

Probably. It depends on the players involved and the likely outcomes and their respective equities.

The question is, which is the correct number to look ahead?

probably the avg of fgs(n) and fgs(n+1)

In theory, the correct fgs should be the initial ICM result.

What is n in that?

the largest number your computer can handle.

While the situation is cool for the big stack, it's not bad for you as well if the 3rd player is a fish who will be making costy mistakes, i.e. calling the big stack too wide (they nearly all do, reason is that a good calling range is a lot tighter than someone who didn't study icm intuitively thinks) maybe also jamming too wide vs him (some do).

Concerning FGS-Question:
Good rule of thumb should be to use FGS(#players-1) to have blinds hit everyone equally, as long as pc can handle that. But for most spots the results shouldn't vary that much that it's really the most important question.

Always recall that FGS assumes some equilibrium ranges being used in the upcoming hands which might be far from reality. Imagine the following scenario: U're on a 6m bubble with a fish involved. A reg jams into you, you know his range and are faced with the decision to make a +0.05% call FGS(bla) is saying or fold. While the value might swing a bit depending on which FGS you use, that's not the most relevant question. Thing is the fish will use bad ranges (significantly worse than equilibrium) in the upcoming hands which lead to folding hands that are borderline (or maybe even decently +ev assuming FGS assumptions would hold) being best.

similar but even more extreme scenario just happened:

3$ 6max KO hyper.
50/100/10

B: 113
SB: 2000 (hero)
BB: 800

i shove any2. Villain in the BB. Is a good reg. over 200k games, all 6max hyper. Up to 50$. He calls rather fast with A8o. I was mind blown. Just loaded this hand in HRC and calling with A8o is icm wise ofc a horror call to the max (-10.1)

But i seen him making other (much less extreme) minus icm calls all the time. His overall roi lies between 4-5% i believe. So what to make of this?

I lost and managed to finish 3th * drama violin playing in the background *

Hm **** happens, he just sucks at ICM or misclicked.
Him grinding 3$ games makes me think it's the first (cause there is no incentive to do so if u beat higher, even offpeak enough run), 200k games don't automatically make u a good player, some ppl are amazingly stubborn to keep their "100% play, 0% study" ratio.

Yeah but roi of 4-5% is what the best regs have. I know he knows its bad icm wise. But he says there are other factors als well.

-10.1 is obv a redic call.

Sure there are other factors, but none of them comes even close to justifying those kind of calls, it's just bad.

The best regs move up though, so the people who consistently have that ROI at that level are the second tier.