€10 NL HE STT: Did I commit ICM suicide?

I was at the bubble of a Sit & Go (1st place €31.67, 2nd place €15.83). BTN had a large stack 20.55 BB, SB had 2.75 BB, I had 7.65 BB, all after ante. Total ante was 0.32 BB.

BTN folded.
SB open shoved 2.75 BB.
I held Q3s. This was a clear profitable call in cash, but did I commit ICM suicide?

I don't think you did here, its close.....if you called the big stacks raise of 2.75, then that is def suicide.

However I'd prefer slightly better cards, say a K high at least as he will also shove quite a few Q high that you are now beating

Was SB a tighter or looser type of player? I am guessing tighter than usual unless they just lost a big pot to get down to 2.75bb.. I don't know how close it is but I would tend to overfold here just because I have a better chance of SB getting knocked out by the big stack over the next few hands and Q3s is probably not the hand to get it in against someone that has allowed themselves to get blinded down to 2.75bb.

This is basically a call with any two cards due to pot odds. There is almost 4BB in the pot, and its only 1,65BB more for you to call. Calling and losing will not send you out of the tournament, so this is in no way, shape or form "ICM suicide". If I turn on future game simulation (FGS) in ICMizer, a few junky hands are folded: 32o, 42o, 62o and 72o. This is due to the fact, that calling and losing will make you the short stack, which is bad for future hands.

However folding a hand as strong as Q3s would lose you 3,5% of the price pool even with FGS turned on , which would be a massive mistake. ICMizer has SB jamming 85% of hands, which I think is realistic, because what else is he going to do with just 2,65BB and having 0,5BB of that already invested in posting a blind? He is far past the point, where he can hope to fold his way to the money.

But just for arguments sake I changed his jamming range to only 60% of hands. This does not change the situation much. 32o-92o and 73o-93o are now folds for Hero, but Q3s still win Hero 2,27% of the price pool. So not quite as profitable, as when SB is playing correctly, but still a very profitable call and a situation, where we absolutly can not fold, if we want to have any chance of beating SnGs.

So the only lesson to take away from this is to not be results oriented. When we call due to pot odds, there is no reason to second guess our decision, just because we happened to lose this time. There are lots of situations like this is SnGs, where stacks get short, and the players in the blinds just has to get it in with basically any two cards or something very close to that. And then the result will just be, what it will be.

SpanRmonka said:

I don't think you did here, its close.....

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No its not close at all. See my reply above.

SpanRmonka said:

However I'd prefer slightly better cards, say a K high at least as he will also shove quite a few Q high that you are now beating

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The key factor here is pot odds, since Hero already posted the big blind. Because of those pot odds folding anything but the worst junk is a significant mistake. Regularly folding hands, that win you >3% of the price pool at equilibrium, will make it impossible to beat 6-man SnGs.

fundiver199 said:

No its not close at all. See my reply above.

The key factor here is pot odds, since Hero already posted the big blind. Because of those pot odds folding anything but the worst junk is a significant mistake. Regularly folding hands, that win you >3% of the price pool at equilibrium, will make it impossible to beat 6-man SnGs.

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I assume it makes a reasonable difference if the short stack has folded, and the big stack raises to the same?

Do you still think we should call or fold and hope the shorty goes out next hand?

Large stack should be opening with almost any 2 right, I mean, personally I'd be shoving any 2 as the big stack here vs middle stack, so maybe my above scenario is unlikely?

SpanRmonka said:

I assume it makes a reasonable difference if the short stack has folded, and the big stack raises to the same?

Do you still think we should call or fold and hope the shorty goes out next hand?

Large stack should be opening with almost any 2 right, I mean, personally I'd be shoving any 2 as the big stack here vs middle stack, so maybe my above scenario is unlikely?

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As the mid stack we need to call off extremely tight against the chip leader, but we can call much wider against the short stack. The reason is kind of obvious. If we win against the short stack, we bust him, and then we are in the money, which is of course a great outcome. But if we win against the chip leader, there are still 3 players in the tournament, and we might still be the bubble boy.

The equilibrium for this situation has BTN (the chip leader) jamming 68% of hands with FGS turned on. The reason, its not even higher, is because, SB is so short, he is supposed to call a BTN jam with 46% of hands. So BTN has much less fold equity, than if both opponents were 7-8BB deep. BB (Hero) can only call a BTN jam with 4,7% of hands, which is 88+, AK, AQs. So against BTN Q3s and also hands much stronger than that would be a snap fold.

If BTN makes a non all-in raise, which really he should not be doing for 7,7BB effective, we would need to decide how to react to that. If it was a min-raise, we could choose to see a flop and then stop-and-go, if we connect. I would need something better than Q3s to do that though. If it was a larger raise like 2,75BB, then I would just pretend, it was a jam, and give action with the same range.