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Hi, I am new to this forum and relatively new to sit and go’s. I grasp the concept of the tournament equity section where all in coin flip confrontations early on can actually reduce your equity. However I have a couple questions:
1. In Hand 1-4, it is recommended to shove with AK after a raise and two limpers. Let’s assume no one has been eliminated, everyone has 2k in chips, and one person calls your push. Is your tournament equity reduced if you are called by someone with JJ and in a coin-flip situation? There is t460 more chips in this situation than if you call an all-in if MP1 open pushes and it is folded to you. Do the t460 chips make the difference or is it because there is fold equity?
2. How big a favorite do you have to be to call an all-in in low-blind play (2-1, 3-1, etc.)? How many chips have to be in the middle to make your all-in call worth the risk of your tournament life assuming only one person will call (t2460, t2600, etc.)?
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The best way to do this is to get an ICM calculator and determine your equity in each of the possible outcomes. Then you can write down some equations, usually using an equality that you want your equity if you call ($EV_fold) to be equal to your equity if you push ($EV_push). There should be one unknown in the equation and you can use basic algebra to solve for it.
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Thank you for the response. I had to look up what ICM was since I did not get to that chapter in the book yet. I will take some time to read this section and try to work through some calculations on my own. I was really hoping someone would explain the difference in the AK hands from Question 1 above as it relates to your tournament equity. If my questions are too "Beginner” for this forum I apologize and would appreciate if someone could direct me to the appropriate forum. Thank you.
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Your question is exactly the right level. Hand 1-4 would be a good one to work through in more detail. For now, just assume an ICM calculator is a black box that translates chip stacks at the table and tournament payouts into tournament equity, as explained on pages 6-11. "Tournament equity" is also called "prize pool equity," or sometimes just "equity" in cases where it's assumed to be in a tournament. I usually use the term "prize pool equity."
Looking at hand 1-4, let's assume for now that you have only two options: raise all-in or fold. So the question becomes "Which option gives you the highest prize pool equity, pushing all-in or folding?" It will be necessary for you to make some assumptions because not all of the necessary information is supplied explicitly in the problem statement given in the book.
Get as far as you can and post your results/thoughts/questions. If you get stuck somewhere, just post whatever you've done up to that point.
EDIT:
Here is the ICM calculator I use. There are a few others in the "other Links" sticky.