Where ICM is lacking?

[nichtsnutz]

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You have $1. I offer you a coinflip where you pay $1 if I win and I pay $2 if you win today, but tomorrow im going to offer $3 for your $1. Taking the bet today would be stupid. Thats how ICM can be shortsighted- you are (potentially) passing up better opportunities.

The issue then is how often a better opportunity will come about, something that I feel needs to be included in these SnG ICM tools.

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Assume each wager can only be taken once, and any winnings can be wagered the next day (this makes the analogy closer to a poker situtation).

Lets say you take the 1st wager. Now 50% of the time you end up with $3, you then take this $3 and wager it tommorrow, gaining $9 if you win losing your $3 if you lose. Therefore you have a 25% chance of ending up with $12, EV = $3.

Now lets say you pass on the 1st wager, and take the 2nd. You now end up with $4 50% of the time, EV = $2.

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If you took the first wager 50% of the time youd have $2, not $3, going into tomorrow. The other 50% of the time youd be broke. Im not going to compute the EV though because my point was just that you cant say its +EV and push without thinking about BETTER options. The above example was meant to illustrate this point, not be replaced as a poker analogy.

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That makes no sense. You say "If you took the first wager 50% of the time youd have $2....The other 50% of the time youd be broke."

This accounts to a regular coinflip and is not what you wrote earlier. It would also be 0 EV. The other person was right. If I win you PAY me $2 and if you win I PAY you $1 and am broke. And as somebody has already pointed out it would be stupid to pass the opportunity because it allowes me to wager more on the even better coinflip tomorrow.

This also goes for the SNGs. You keep saying "I should pass up this +EV opportunity because there will be a even higher EV opportunity tomorrow". What you are missing is, that taking the first +EV opportunity will allow you to take better opportunities in the future more often then it will prevent you from doing so.

To use your AK/AA example. Imagine your opponent has 3 times your stack. If you fold the AK you have a 70% (or whatever) chance of getting even in chips with AA. Lets just say this wins you the tourney exaclty 50% of the time so you win .7 * .5 = 35%. But had you called with the AK (lets say you win it 60%) as well you'd have won the tournament .6 * .7 = 42%

[ChipLeader]

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1. Assuming that those occasions where other considerations override or significantly modify ICM are much more common than they actually are.

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Very possible.

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2. Thinking that if he has a skill edge post-flop he can make a standard raise with 10BB and still have enough chips to outplay his opponent on the flop. He's not talking about folding some +EV pushes (although he's undoubtedly doing that too) - he's talking about raising and playing poker instead.

I'm interested to know what the OP thinks is causing his recent lack of profit in SNGs (the subject of his last thread) if he rejects all the advice he got in that thread (ie that he is failing to apply ICM appropriately). Passing up a lot of +EV edges seems to be a pretty good way to neutralise an otherwise +EV playing style.

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Actually last night's thread wasnt always raising with 10x BB, it was raising on bubble with anything but a monster stack, the discussion just quickly went to ICM which focuses on 10x BB play. I think my recent lack of profit has been (mostly) the result of two things: getting involved too much with above avg stack and getting involved too seldom with below average stack. All the discussion and readings on using ICM to calculate when to push and such has already helped with my problem of not pushing often enough (though I still think it advocates pushing TOO often, for the reasons mentioned in OP). It also helped me to realize to be more agg towards small stacks with pushes- i still dont think its right against someone with 10x BB, but 7x and below i am much more willing to shove in.

I personally think people who push everytime it has some +EV are risking too much too often, and totally taking the skill advantage out against $10 donks. They win in the long run, but I feel you could be winning more.

[ymu]

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1. Assuming that those occasions where other considerations override or significantly modify ICM are much more common than they actually are.

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Very possible.

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2. Thinking that if he has a skill edge post-flop he can make a standard raise with 10BB and still have enough chips to outplay his opponent on the flop. He's not talking about folding some +EV pushes (although he's undoubtedly doing that too) - he's talking about raising and playing poker instead.

I'm interested to know what the OP thinks is causing his recent lack of profit in SNGs (the subject of his last thread) if he rejects all the advice he got in that thread (ie that he is failing to apply ICM appropriately). Passing up a lot of +EV edges seems to be a pretty good way to neutralise an otherwise +EV playing style.

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Actually last night's thread wasnt always raising with 10x BB, it was raising on bubble with anything but a monster stack, the discussion just quickly went to ICM which focuses on 10x BB play. I think my recent lack of profit has been (mostly) the result of two things: getting involved too much with above avg stack and getting involved too seldom with below average stack. All the discussion and readings on using ICM to calculate when to push and such has already helped with my problem of not pushing often enough (though I still think it advocates pushing TOO often, for the reasons mentioned in OP). It also helped me to realize to be more agg towards small stacks with pushes- i still dont think its right against someone with 10x BB, but 7x and below i am much more willing to shove in.

I personally think people who push everytime it has some +EV are risking too much too often, and totally taking the skill advantage out against $10 donks. They win in the long run, but I feel you could be winning more.

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You shouldn't be thinking about average stack in an STT - the blinds get so high relative to the average stack that a few steals can give you the chip lead very quickly.

When you have a reasonably deep stack you should just play good ultra-TAG poker. Don't throw your chips around unnecessarily. On the bubble with a big chip lead you can throw your chips around a lot more because you have a lot of FE and can survive losing a hand or two. It's easier to abuse the bubble like this with one microstack and two medium stacks - with three medium stacks they will have to open up a bit and take more risks. ICM still applies here - estimate your opponents calling ranges and work out the most EV play for a given hand (which is still push or fold if everyone left to act is below 10BB).

When you have a short stack (~10BBs) you need to find good opportunities to push AI. ICM will help you to identify whether an opportunity is good or not, but it is only as good as your read on your opponents. If you don't estimate calling ranges accurately, you will get the wrong advice. GIGO, etc.

It is true that if your opponents are playing suboptimally then you can do better than ICM-based play - but in this case, you need to be able to articulate exactly how their play is suboptimal and understand how that can be exploited. As a shortstack, you have limited opportunities to exploit anyone, so ignoring +EV pushes is still not going to be a good idea.

You'd probably get a lot further posting specific hands where you had trouble than posting up multiple threads asking for general advice - especially if you don't/won't agree with the unanimous responses you're getting here.

[Pudge714]

Making a -EV push when you have FE isn't a shortcoming in ICM. It is taking one -EV spot to avoid another more -EV spot. Best examples of this is shoving stuff like 68s utg

A good example of ICM overvaluing short stacks is this situation
CO 1
BTN 1
BB 20
SB 20
The CO and the BTN would have the same equity, when they very clearly don't.