ICM Spot, Can I ever call?

Semprini · Aug 16, 2026

monkeytilter said:
The exploit is limp and stab. As @fundiver199 pointed out the majority GTO play here is shove/fold. In better games villains will overfold.
In these we aren't getting ISO'd enough - so we are exploiting that.

No, that's almost like saying, "I'm gonna fold my royal flush, hah! He'll never see that coming!"

So your exploit here is to trap him with ... wait for it ... J8s. : / That may not be what you are intending to do but that is effectively what you are doing.

monkeytilter said:
BTW I am under less pressure than the short stacks, so "SOON" is less soon for me than them.
ICM pressure on them means I don't need to be jam happy?

But you're not playing against the short stacks here.

monkeytilter said:
I meant he calls shoves wide.. not he "calls" a limp ..you're pardoned

Well then it goes back to the statement, are you comfortable shoving J8s in his face and getting called wide or not? How wide is he calling. Can't be too wide if you don't want to jam here. He will check it closed with any 2 cards if you limp and now every card on that flop that doesn't help your hand will scare the hell out of you, or he will raise you and you walk away from 7% of your stack, which is significant when you only have 7bb and this close to the bubble. I'll say it again. If you limp this in and he checks, you MUST hit this flop, and hopefully better than 3rd pair 8s because you have zero info on his range. Considering that stack sizes are ripe for trapping he may not even be capped with a check! If you limp, you put yourself in a TERRIBLE spot out of position on the flop.

monkeytilter said:
No, that is the fit or fold thinking I am looking to exploit in villain.
He is somewhat capped as he has not shoved or raised pre, I now just need him not to hit the flop (the norm at hold 'em) rather than me hit the flop.
Most players do not continue correctly vs the limp-min stab (to be fair some correct continues are very counterintuitive).

This could be why you have seen better results with shoving rather than having a short SB limp range as you haven't grasped this dynamic?

I totally grasp this dynamic because I used to do it all the time when I was a complete fish. Then I changed to shove/fold and immediately started increasing my results in these spots a TON.

No, he is not necessarily capped at all. If a trap happens at any time in this tournament, it is right now. This is a perfect time for traps.

You need him to whiff the flop, but you have no info on his hand. He has 100% range if you limp into him, so you will HAVE NO CLUE if he whiffed or not. And not only that, if he flops a strong draw, your min stab is the perfect price to call. And as the hand plays out, you are barrelling small on an increasingly wet board!! There's another error that hasn't been mentioned.

What flop(s) are you looking for that tells you, "he has whiffed!" and how likely will any of those flops come up? Remember, you're out of position post-flop. Wanna bluff with 7bb (read: next to no fold equity) ?? (min stab - as you put it - is not a bluff sizing btw)

In my opinion, opening 2x would be a better move than limping here just in case he has auto-fold ticked.

Your plan is to limp in, watch him check, then min stab the flop as a bluff. And that's an exploit? You have way more fold equity jamming pre (since you threaten 60% of his stack) than if you min stab the flop. Please believe me that I do no mean to be rude here, but you're completely overthinking this (and outsmarting yourself) as far as I'm concerned.

Semprini · Aug 16, 2026

martinoni said:
In this spot I think either call or fold is correct

Uhh ... those are the only 2 options ...

monkeytilter · Aug 16, 2026

Semprini said:
No, that's almost like saying, "I'm gonna fold my royal flush, hah! He'll never see that coming!"

So your exploit here is to trap him with ... wait for it ... J8s. : / That may not be what you are intending to do but that is effectively what you are doing.

But you're not playing against the short stacks here.

Well then it goes back to the statement, are you comfortable shoving J8s in his face and getting called wide or not? How wide is he calling. Can't be too wide if you don't want to jam here. He will check it closed with any 2 cards if you limp and now every card on that flop that doesn't help your hand will scare the hell out of you, or he will raise you and you walk away from 7% of your stack, which is significant when you only have 7bb and this close to the bubble. I'll say it again. If you limp this in and he checks, you MUST hit this flop, and hopefully better than 3rd pair 8s because you have zero info on his range. Considering that stack sizes are ripe for trapping he may not even be capped with a check! If you limp, you put yourself in a TERRIBLE spot out of position on the flop.

I totally grasp this dynamic because I used to do it all the time when I was a complete fish. Then I changed to shove/fold and immediately started increasing my results in these spots a TON.

No, he is not necessarily capped at all. If a trap happens at any time in this tournament, it is right now. This is a perfect time for traps.

You need him to whiff the flop, but you have no info on his hand. He has 100% range if you limp into him, so you will HAVE NO CLUE if he whiffed or not. And not only that, if he flops a strong draw, your min stab is the perfect price to call. And as the hand plays out, you are barrelling small on an increasingly wet board!! There's another error that hasn't been mentioned.

What flop(s) are you looking for that tells you, "he has whiffed!" and how likely will any of those flops come up? Remember, you're out of position post-flop. Wanna bluff with 7bb (read: next to no fold equity) ?? (min stab - as you put it - is not a bluff sizing btw)

In my opinion, opening 2x would be a better move than limping here just in case he has auto-fold ticked.

Your plan is to limp in, watch him check, then min stab the flop as a bluff. And that's an exploit? You have way more fold equity jamming pre (since you threaten 60% of his stack) than if you min stab the flop. Please believe me that I do no mean to be rude here, but you're completely overthinking this (and outsmarting yourself) as far as I'm concerned.

This has gone way off track from the ICM question(s) I posed.

You prefer fold/shove at shorter stacks? That works for you, the "modern" approach is to have a limping range, that works for me.

The issue here was getting into a pot under ICM (most likely incorrectly), hitting about as well I could then having a terrible run out, it doesn't invalidate the limp range short under chip EV advocated by GTO - that can come down to a debate whether "shoving as an exploit" outperforms "limp stab + shoving" as an exploit, you can start another thread for that one if you like.

eetenor · Aug 16, 2026

Your play based on your thinking was fine. We do have a limping range in that spot and we are also going to bet to protect/build our stack and small bets are fine depending on the value targets and equity denial that you were considering. That is the study point here those 2 ranges.

Semprini · Aug 16, 2026

monkeytilter said:
This has gone way off track from the ICM question(s) I posed.

Not really, no. You say it yourself.

monkeytilter said:
The issue here was getting into a pot under ICM (most likely incorrectly), hitting about as well I could then having a terrible run out,

The answer to your question is to not get into this situation in the first place. Your strategy of limping in is what got you into this mess, so the answer to this question is to not limp in this spot because shoving here absolutely does outperform 'limp and stab' whether intended as an exploit or not. 'Limp and stab' as you put it is not an exploit. It's just weak play.

fundiver199 · Aug 16, 2026

monkeytilter said:
If you look at 10/9/8BB play GTO has ~27/23/16% limp, we can't hand wave those away as a "very small simplification"?

It is a very small simplification, when jamming is still the more common play. If you play only jam or fold, this does not mean, you are then folding all those hands, that the solver limp. Most of them would then be jammed instead. Even more importantly this is in Chip EV, and its not very often, we are playing Chip EV, when our stacks are this short.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

fundiver199 said:
It is a very small simplification, when jamming is still the more common play. If you play only jam or fold, this does not mean, you are then folding all those hands, that the solver limp. Most of them would then be jammed instead. Even more importantly this is in Chip EV, and its not very often, we are playing Chip EV, when our stacks are this short.

I'm all for simplifying GTO ranges to make implementation practical but saying ignore the limp part of the range and just jam/fold when that part is a much as 27% is not a 'very small' simplification. We're not ignoring a bit of solver noise or a few edge cases at that point.

MTT players will find themselves with a short stack while playing chip EV often enough unfortunately, it's the nature of the game. Get it in good, take a beat; Get coolered on an all in covering; Run bad for a while and fail on steals over and over etc. So have to disagree with your point there too.

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
I'm all for simplifying GTO ranges to make implementation practical but saying ignore the limp part of the range and just jam/fold when that part is a much as 27% is not a 'very small' simplification. We're not ignoring a bit of solver noise or a few edge cases at that point.

MTT players will find themselves with a short stack while playing chip EV often enough unfortunately, it's the nature of the game. Get it in good, take a beat; Get coolered on an all in covering; Run bad for a while and fail on steals over and over etc. So have to disagree with your point there too.

You admit that your strategy was to limp in with the intention of bluffing the flop with a min bet. That is not a GTO play. That is a complete fish play (sorry to say, just being honest). Whatever GTO advantage an SB open limp range may give you, you weren't using it. If that is the case, jam/fold is an infinitely more profitable strat.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
You admit that your strategy was to limp in with the intention of bluffing the flop with a min bet. That is not a GTO play. That is a complete fish play (sorry to say, just being honest). Whatever GTO advantage an SB open limp range may give you, you weren't using it. If that is the case, jam/fold is an infinitely more profitable strat.

No that was a simplification for brevity in a spiraling thread. The dominant part of the GTO strategy after a limp is to stab favourable flops small, sometimes as a bluff, often enough for value. Nothing magical here, very similar to standard cbetting.

I'm not advocating for limp-stab everything from the SB short stacked, just part of the range (~14% at 7BB), as this has been found to out perform simple shove/fold.

That 14% contains some very strong pairs, some middle suited connectors and some trash - hard for BB to play back at ('destroy'?😄)

I've already conceded limping J8s (specifically) under ICM was most likely the error here, but you've provided nothing compelling to demonstrate shove/fold out-performs the GTO 'fishy?' limp,shove,fold more generally*.

*As I said this would be better discussed in a new thread though I'll happily discuss how GTO modifies it's short stack ranges under ICM here.

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
No that was a simplification for brevity in a spiraling thread. The dominant part of the GTO strategy after a limp is to stab favourable flops small, sometimes as a bluff, often enough for value. Nothing magical here, very similar to standard cbetting.

So I ask again, when Villain is literally 100% wide (including all trap hands) what flop(s) are you looking for that tell you that he has whiffed? You have to have an idea BEFORE you limp if your line is to limp in with intention to bluff the flop (with just 7bb behind no less).

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
So I ask again, when Villain is literally 100% wide (including all trap hands) what flop(s) are you looking for that tell you that he has whiffed? You have to have an idea BEFORE you limp if your line is to limp in with intention to bluff the flop (with just 7bb behind no less).

I might discuss if you create a new thread, this has drifted away from an ICM spot. Again if you don't agree with the GTO approach at 7/8BB in general that's fine, I'll flog that horse no further here.

Something to ponder if you want to start a new thread: How do we assess a flop as 'good' for us when villain has a very wide range? Same principles apply. 100% ranges don't flop particularly well most of the time.

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
Something to ponder if you want to start a new thread: How do we assess a flop as 'good' for us when villain has a very wide range? Same principles apply. 100% ranges don't flop particularly well most of the time.

yes, any 2 cards whiff the flop 70% of the time, including J8s.

So you have nothing in mind. 100% range will flop just as well as J8s. So you are just guessing that he will whiff the flop. I can't agree with any strategy that guesses. That is just gambling 50/50. In poker we try to REDUCE the gambling factor. If limping here is your strat you might as well go play roulette.

I'm not sure that I would jam here with my tournament life so close to the bubble but it would be a better chance to win the hand. here's the math.

Let's just assume that he calls a jam 70% wide. I don't think he's that wide but as you say, you are exploiting the 'fact' that he will call a jam wide but won't raise a limp at all. That doesn't make much sense but I'll take your word for it. He's 70% wide calling our pre-flop iso jam. This means ...

1 - 30% of the time, we steal
2 - roughly 35% our J8s holds up to his call and we double up
3 - roughly 35% of the time we felt

We have a 65% chance to win the hand if we jam and a 50% chance to win if we straight up gamble with a limp.

In fact our chances with a jam are probably closer to 70 or 75% because Villain isn't calling us 70% wide when we threaten 60% of his stack near the bubble. Our chances to steal are higher than the calculations.

GTO SCHmee-TO. This is a freeroll on a play money site, against a player that you claim to be playing too wide, come on. On one hand, you say it's a GTO play, on the other you say that you are exploiting. You have to make up your mind. You don't seem to understand your own strat here.

fundiver199 · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
I'm all for simplifying GTO ranges to make implementation practical but saying ignore the limp part of the range and just jam/fold when that part is a much as 27% is not a 'very small' simplification. We're not ignoring a bit of solver noise or a few edge cases at that point.

It might still be a very small simplification, if the difference in EV between those two lines is minimal. More importantly still this was not a Chip EV situation, it was a final table close to the bubble. The solution provided by GTO Wizard (which I used) does not take into account, that chips lost are vastly more valuable than chips won for both SB and BB in this situation.

It also assume, that SB protect his limping range with 99-AA, and for those reasons BB does not jam very often when checked to, which obviously increase the EV of limping. If BB is even a little bit ICM aware, he is going to jam way more often than assumed by GTO Wizard, and then a hand like J8s need to fold. GTO Wizard already has J8s as a mix, where its jammed around 2/3 of the time, which mean, the EVs of these two plays run close.

And if there is any sort of increased frequenzy of BB jamming when limped to, then jamming become the most profitable play. So for me I would need to see HUD-stats like 17/4 or something to even consider limping here. Against players, whom I assume to be a bit on the aggressive side, I might limp premium hands as a trap but I am not ever limp-folding for 7BB on a final table.

Whenever we use software to improve our game, we always need to check the assumptions build into the calculations and whatever limitations there might be. And here not factoring in ICM is an absolutely critical one. Solvers are great for deeper stacked play in Chip EV mode like cash game or early play in MTTs, or even mid-phase play in MTTs with say 20-40BB.

But for a spot like this you really need to use an ICM calculator like ICMizer. And if you do this, you will likely see, that if SB limp there entire range, they get to play far less hands than, if they jam their entire range. And this is because, jamming is such a powerfull move, when the opponent need a big equity edge to call.

Its a bit like the game of chicken, where two cars drive straight against each other, and unless one of them drive into the ditch, they will collide, and both drivers will die. If one of the drivers then take off his steering wheel and hold it out the window for the other driver to see, then this driver is pretty much forced to drive into the ditch, because he know, the other driver is not able to do this, even if he wants to.

And this is why, whenever there is significant ICM-pressure, we want to be the player jamming, whenever we have a profitable spot to do so, and we also want to take that play away from our opponents, so they dont jam on us with hands, they would have easily folded, if we jammed on them. I cant access ICMizer right now, but looking at your hand history I am pretty sure, this is a jam any two cards situations for SB, or at least any two but total junk.

So the only reason, I would not do that, is, if I think, my opponent will call off to wide. That might be the case, if this was a big field freeroll, where a min-cash was $0.18. Then many people would not care much about that and decide to "go for the win". But here its $10, and I think, nearly everyone care about this after playing for hours.

So I dont think, an unknown opponent is going to call you to wide, if you jam on him in this hand. Even if he dont know the correct range to call with, he will intuitively make the correct decision most of the time. And then is one of the rare times in poker, where we actually want our opponent to play correctly, because it hurt both him and us, if we collide, when this should have been avoided by him folding.

Finally a few words about simplifying decisions. This obviously does not matter, if you only play one tournament, as I suppose was the case here, since it was a CC freeroll on Replay. But if you are multitabling for instance 32-man SnGs on PokerStars, where spots like this come up all the time, there is a lot of value in keeping your decisions as simple as possible.

If you jam a hand like this, you have no more decisions to make and can focus on other tables. You also protect yourself from ending up in a situation like this one, where you dont have a clear decision postflop. Another thing, which solvers do not take into account, is future play. And when you are down to 7,5BB, its a pretty big disaster to lose a substantial percentage of your stack, since now you have much less fold equity.

If you jam this hand and pick it up, now you have 9,0-9,5BB depending on the size of the ante. And this is a vastly superior situation to having 4,5BB left. On final tables like this, the chip leader and other big stacks will get more and more profitable spots, whereas small and mid stacks will get more and more unprofitable spots, where they need to fold. And for this reason there is value in taking aggressive action and try to go after the chip lead, even if you will sometimes get caught and bust as a result.

But ok it was to much of a simplification to say, that you should never SB limp with less than 10BB. If this was early in an MTT, where either we or the opponent had lost most of our chips, then its fine to limp with a range of 99-AA, some suited connectors and a little bit of junk, like the solver suggest. And then basically call off with 99+ and fold the rest facing a jam from BB.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
yes, any 2 cards whiff the flop 70% of the time, including J8s.

So you have nothing in mind. 100% range will flop just as well as J8s. So you are just guessing that he will whiff the flop. I can't agree with any strategy that guesses. That is just gambling 50/50. In poker we try to REDUCE the gambling factor. If limping here is your strat you might as well go play roulette.

I'm not sure that I would jam here with my tournament life so close to the bubble but it would be a better chance to win the hand. here's the math.

Let's just assume that he calls a jam 70% wide. I don't think he's that wide but as you say, you are exploiting the 'fact' that he will call a jam wide but won't raise a limp at all. That doesn't make much sense but I'll take your word for it. He's 70% wide calling our pre-flop iso jam. This means ...

1 - 30% of the time, we steal
2 - roughly 35% our J8s holds up to his call and we double up
3 - roughly 35% of the time we felt

We have a 65% chance to win the hand if we jam and a 50% chance to win if we straight up gamble with a limp.

In fact our chances with a jam are probably closer to 70 or 75% because Villain isn't calling us 70% wide when we threaten 60% of his stack near the bubble. Our chances to steal are higher than the calculations.

GTO SCHmee-TO. This is a freeroll on a play money site, against a player that you claim to be playing too wide, come on. On one hand, you say it's a GTO play, on the other you say that you are exploiting. You have to make up your mind. You don't seem to understand your own strat here.

Who said I'm playing GTO?
GTO got brought up in response to fundiver saying incorrectly you can't limp SB under 10bb chip EV.

This is the problem with a spiralling thread and why I don't want to continue it here.

I've said this already but I'll repeat before signing off with you on this thread: the exploit comes from not being punished enough for limping, then villains not defending limped pots post flop correctly (I don't need to 'hit' with J8s) - this exploits harder and is lower variance then relying on him not calling shoves correctly, it just so happens that this aligns with a GTO approach that has a limp range this shallow and bets small on ~60% of flops.

The only issue I'll discuss here now is how the limp range contracts under ICM - peace.

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
Who said I'm playing GTO?

You did.

monkeytilter said:
I might discuss if you create a new thread, this has drifted away from an ICM spot. Again if you don't agree with the GTO approach at 7/8BB in general that's fine, I'll flog that horse no further here.

monkeytilter said:
The dominant part of the GTO strategy after a limp is to stab favourable flops small, sometimes as a bluff, often enough for value.

monkeytilter said:
it doesn't invalidate the limp range short under chip EV advocated by GTO

I could go back to page 1 and quote more. You've spent half of this thread defending your action with a GTO limp range from a solver. You've spent the other half defending that limping here is somehow an exploit. It can't be both.

monkeytilter said:
I might discuss if you create a new thread, this has drifted away from an ICM spot.

This has not drifted at all. The opening post asked how to handle the river spot, and the answer to that is to not get into this awful spot by playing the previous streets so weakly in the first place. Not only did you limp, but you barrelled small (with peanuts behind in your stack, making you unplayable on the turn), out of position (!!) on an increasingly wet board. This is error upon error upon error.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

fundiver199 said:
It might still be a very small simplification, if the difference in EV between those two lines is minimal. More importantly still this was not a Chip EV situation, it was a final table close to the bubble. The solution provided by GTO Wizard (which I used) does not take into account, that chips lost are vastly more valuable than chips won for both SB and BB in this situation.

It also assume, that SB protect his limping range with 99-AA, and for those reasons BB does not jam very often when checked to, which obviously increase the EV of limping. If BB is even a little bit ICM aware, he is going to jam way more often than assumed by GTO Wizard, and then a hand like J8s need to fold. GTO Wizard already has J8s as a mix, where its jammed around 2/3 of the time, which mean, the EVs of these two plays run close.

And if there is any sort of increased frequenzy of BB jamming when limped to, then jamming become the most profitable play. So for me I would need to see HUD-stats like 17/4 or something to even consider limping here. Against players, whom I assume to be a bit on the aggressive side, I might limp premium hands as a trap but I am not ever limp-folding for 7BB on a final table.

Whenever we use software to improve our game, we always need to check the assumptions build into the calculations and whatever limitations there might be. And here not factoring in ICM is an absolutely critical one. Solvers are great for deeper stacked play in Chip EV mode like cash game or early play in MTTs, or even mid-phase play in MTTs with say 20-40BB.

But for a spot like this you really need to use an ICM calculator like ICMizer. And if you do this, you will likely see, that if SB limp there entire range, they get to play far less hands than, if they jam their entire range. And this is because, jamming is such a powerfull move, when the opponent need a big equity edge to call.

Its a bit like the game of chicken, where two cars drive straight against each other, and unless one of them drive into the ditch, they will collide, and both drivers will die. If one of the drivers then take off his steering wheel and hold it out the window for the other driver to see, then this driver is pretty much forced to drive into the ditch, because he know, the other driver is not able to do this, even if he wants to.

And this is why, whenever there is significant ICM-pressure, we want to be the player jamming, whenever we have a profitable spot to do so, and we also want to take that play away from our opponents, so they dont jam on us with hands, they would have easily folded, if we jammed on them. I cant access ICMizer right now, but looking at your hand history I am pretty sure, this is a jam any two cards situations for SB, or at least any two but total junk.

So the only reason, I would not do that, is, if I think, my opponent will call off to wide. That might be the case, if this was a big field freeroll, where a min-cash was $0.18. Then many people would not care much about that and decide to "go for the win". But here its $10, and I think, nearly everyone care about this after playing for hours.

So I dont think, an unknown opponent is going to call you to wide, if you jam on him in this hand. Even if he dont know the correct range to call with, he will intuitively make the correct decision most of the time. And then is one of the rare times in poker, where we actually want our opponent to play correctly, because it hurt both him and us, if we collide, when this should have been avoided by him folding.

Finally a few words about simplifying decisions. This obviously does not matter, if you only play one tournament, as I suppose was the case here, since it was a CC freeroll on Replay. But if you are multitabling for instance 32-man SnGs on PokerStars, where spots like this come up all the time, there is a lot of value in keeping your decisions as simple as possible.

If you jam a hand like this, you have no more decisions to make and can focus on other tables. You also protect yourself from ending up in a situation like this one, where you dont have a clear decision postflop. Another thing, which solvers do not take into account, is future play. And when you are down to 7,5BB, its a pretty big disaster to lose a substantial percentage of your stack, since now you have much less fold equity.

If you jam this hand and pick it up, now you have 9,0-9,5BB depending on the size of the ante. And this is a vastly superior situation to having 4,5BB left. On final tables like this, the chip leader and other big stacks will get more and more profitable spots, whereas small and mid stacks will get more and more unprofitable spots, where they need to fold. And for this reason there is value in taking aggressive action and try to go after the chip lead, even if you will sometimes get caught and bust as a result.

But ok it was to much of a simplification to say, that you should never SB limp with less than 10BB. If this was early in an MTT, where either we or the opponent had lost most of our chips, then its fine to limp with a range of 99-AA, some suited connectors and a little bit of junk, like the solver suggest. And then basically call off with 99+ and fold the rest facing a jam from BB.

Does Icmizer allow for a split limp/shove range? (I doubt it).

A limp only range would be silly here obviously.

What I really need to see is the GTO ICM solution, and how the limp range contracts (disappears?).

Looking at it now I think a very tight shove/fold is the play as two shorties set to bust, both unlikely to be 'ICM crushers', so this won't be that tough a bubble. I think the failing on my part is trying to over exploit in a soft game, though a very unfortunate run out cost me here, but not enough to not ITM👍

fundiver199 · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
Does Icmizer allow for a split limp/shove range? (I doubt it).

No and that is a limitation of that program. But in a situation like this its far more important to take ICM into account than to have the option of a split range. In other situations it matter more. Like if we open from CO, and BB jam on us for 18BB. Then ICMizer will assume, BB is either jamming or folding, and this will lead to a much weaker jamming range than, what most people are actually jamming with. But we cant use a solver to tell us our calling range either, if its a final table, because not taking ICM into account will then also lead to a much to wide calling range.

monkeytilter said:
A limp only range would be silly here obviously.

Yes I agree. I would absolutely be jamming to put the pressure on BB, who have a stack almost identical to yours.

monkeytilter said:
What I really need to see is the GTO ICM solution, and how the limp range contracts (disappears?).

I dont know, if any program can even do that, and you might be overthinking this simple spot quite a bit now.

monkeytilter said:
Looking at it now I think a very tight shove/fold is the play as two shorties set to bust, both unlikely to be 'ICM crushers', so this won't be that tough a bubble.

No you want to be jamming wide here, because BB is forced to fold so much, and the vast majority of players will actually do that, because they want to cash.

monkeytilter said:
I think the failing on my part is trying to over exploit in a soft game, though a very unfortunate run out cost me here, but not enough to not ITM👍

I think, the mistake is not completely understanding, how ICM reward aggression and especially the ultimate aggression of jamming into someone, when you threaten their stack.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

fundiver199 said:
No and that is a limitation of that program. But in a situation like this its far more important to take ICM into account than to have the option of a split range. In other situations it matter more. Like if we open from CO, and BB jam on us for 18BB. Then ICMizer will assume, BB is either jamming or folding, and this will lead to a much weaker jamming range than, what most people are actually jamming with. But we cant use a solver to tell us our calling range either, if its a final table, because not taking ICM into account will then also lead to a much to wide calling range.

Yes I agree. I would absolutely be jamming to put the pressure on BB, who have a stack almost identical to yours.

I dont know, if any program can even do that, and you might be overthinking this simple spot quite a bit now.

No you want to be jamming wide here, because BB is forced to fold so much, and the vast majority of players will actually do that, because they want to cash.

I think, the mistake is not completely understanding, how ICM reward aggression and especially the ultimate aggression of jamming into someone, when you threaten their stack.

GTO solvers can provide ICM based solutions now, including GTO wizard.

I wouldn't trust other players in these games to make good ICM folds. seen it too often. Players getting it in ICM bad and only the rest of the table benefits.

So I think J8s shove is ICM torch as I said. Yes it +chip EV for sure, but risk/reward not right given flat payouts and soft bubble.

Just out of interest I might play with the ICM numbers later, at least see how much this play cost me - I don't think it was disastrous when it's 10,10,15..

I know this was only a 'toy' game but the thought processes do transfer up.

fundiver199 · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
GTO solvers can provide ICM based solutions now, including GTO wizard.

Ok thats cool but likely a paid feature, I would assume.

monkeytilter said:
I wouldn't trust other players in these games to make good ICM folds. seen it too often. Players getting it in ICM bad and only the rest of the table benefits.

This I kind of disagree with for the reasons already stated. In this game only 4 players get paid, so its difficult to cash, which mean, nearly everyone should care about that, if they made it this far. Admittedly I have not played a CC freeroll for years. But when I did play them on PokerStars, the bubble often took forever, because people kept on folding and even running the clock down to secure a min-cash of $1 or something.

So unless you have specific information about this particular player, I think, this is a variation of the "monsters under the bed" syndrom. Yes sometimes he will call, because he wake up with a real hand, and this will suck. But it will not happen anywhere near as often, as you think. And even when it does, a hand like J8s is pretty live against the range, he will call with.

monkeytilter said:
So I think J8s shove is ICM torch as I said. Yes it +chip EV for sure, but risk/reward not right given flat payouts and soft bubble.

I strongly disagree. I think, this jam is printing money on a final table bubble. The hands, we can talk about, are really junky ones, where we depend more on Villain not calling even a bit to wide. Like if you want to not jam 92o or 83o, then thats fine, even though ICMizer will probably say, this is a jam any two spot. I have run a 100.000`s of SnG hands though ICMizer, and you would be surpriced, how many "jam any two" situations actually excist. Usually when we are chipleader, but also against equal stacks blind vs. blind.

monkeytilter said:
I know this was only a 'toy' game but the thought processes do transfer up.

I think, people who play these, often take it pretty serious, at least when they can eye the money. So I would definitely not call this a "toy game".

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

fundiver199 said:
Admittedly I have not played a CC freeroll for years. But when I did play them on PokerStars, the bubble often took forever, because people kept on folding and even running the clock down to secure a min-cash of $1 or something.

That's what I mean by a tough 'bubble', that just doesn't happen in these games.

From memory the bubble burst in less than 2 orbits, including a short stack flatting a raise from big stack to fold flop leaving 2BB behind.

Not wishing to demean the games or players by calling it a 'toy' game but meant it's low prize pool and very often plays more like a play money game, the Replay games really are for 'fun'.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
You did.

I could go back to page 1 and quote more. You've spent half of this thread defending your action with a GTO limp range from a solver. You've spent the other half defending that limping here is somehow an exploit. It can't be both.

This has not drifted at all. The opening post asked how to handle the river spot, and the answer to that is to not get into this awful spot by playing the previous streets so weakly in the first place. Not only did you limp, but you barrelled small (with peanuts behind in your stack, making you unplayable on the turn), out of position (!!) on an increasingly wet board. This is error upon error upon error.

It has drifted into whether limping SB as a short stack is viable or not compared to shove/fold.
I suggest it can be (although ICM means I can't just play a chip EV limp range - which is the error I have most likely made in this hand).

If you really want to explore this here (still suggest a separate thread) I challenge you to calculate my expectation if villain folds 50% (as you've suggested).
How does 50% compare to villain's required MDF to stop me auto-profiting on the limp and stab (i.e. without even looking at my cards)?

If you can't that's fine, we'll do the numbers together, I'm not trying to shame you, just explore the EV (at no risk of elimination!) on a limp-stab

Anyone else care to "run the numbers" feel free, it's all good study and maths don't lie

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

We can't calculate the EV on a limp and min bet bluff without seeing the flop and for limping pre to work we need to know this pre-flop. The best that we can say is that with J8s it's a coin flip against the 100% range (including all traps) that will check back pre (which is your plan). And we can't can't count on fold equity post-flop because the flop gives Villain the info to make the correct action. Pre-flop he is more likely to fold a hand that might be ahead of us because all that he has to go on is his hole cards and the amount of his stack at risk (which in this case is roughly 60%!). If he has say K4, he's ahead of us but often folds pre. If he sees the flop, he calls if he hits a K and folds if he whiffs. We're not denying his equity - like at all. And of course your plan was to donk MIN as a bluff (!!) so he might even raise us if he gets a sweet flop. We're giving him an easy spot. The point of an ICM play is to apply pressure to overfoldy stacks, ie give a DIFFICULT spot. The limp does the opposite.

What will you do on a flop of K37-rb?
What will you do on a flop of AQJ-with 2 spade?
What will you do on a flop of 789?
What will you do on a monotone hearts flop?
What will you do on a 252 with 2 clubs and no dia flop?

I've asked you more than once what kind of favorable flop you are looking for, and you haven't answered, although your plan is adamantly to bluff the flop WHEN he whiffs. This is not well planned. Just like a c-bet, you keep saying. It's NOT a c-bet. You're NOT the PFR. You are effectively donking. MIN! As a BLUFF! Here's abetter idea. If you want him to fold, rip it in his face pre when you have fold equity. Pre-flop you cannot calculate EV for your post flop stab, and you can't even estimate your fold equity because you have no idea what the flop will bring. It is mathematically just not possible.

You can calculate all that you like but you are grossly overthinking this. You discovered somewhere that your solver actually has a sliver of a short-stack limp range, and you think that you're going to take this into a freeroll against a bunch of fish and outsmart them with it and prove what a guru you are.

This is the situation. It's a VERY simple spot. It folds to you on the SB 2 felts from the money, you are in 4th or 5th place. Do you think that J8s has a decent enough chance to hold up if you jam and are called? If yes, rip it in his face because you have a high chance to steal when you threaten 60% of his stack near the bubble. If not, fold it. You don't have a stack to play post-flop with. Don't bother getting cute. Don't overthink it.

Please tell me what the flop will be before you see it and we can calculate that EV together. ; )

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
We can't calculate the EV on a limp and min bet bluff without seeing the flop and for limping pre to work we need to know this pre-flop. The best that we can say is that with J8s it's a coin flip against the 100% range (including all traps) that will check back pre (which is your plan). And we can't can't count on fold equity post-flop because the flop gives Villain the info to make the correct action. Pre-flop he is more likely to fold a hand that might be ahead of us because all that he has to go on is his hole cards and the amount of his stack at risk (which in this case is roughly 60%!). If he has say K4, he's ahead of us but often folds pre. If he sees the flop, he calls if he hits a K and folds if he whiffs. We're not denying his equity - like at all. And of course your plan was to donk MIN as a bluff (!!) so he might even raise us if he gets a sweet flop. We're giving him an easy spot. The point of an ICM play is to apply pressure to overfoldy stacks, ie give a DIFFICULT spot. The limp does the opposite.

What will you do on a flop of K37-rb?
What will you do on a flop of AQJ-with 2 spade?
What will you do on a flop of 789?
What will you do on a monotone hearts flop?
What will you do on a 252 with 2 clubs and no dia flop?

I've asked you more than once what kind of favorable flop you are looking for, and you haven't answered, although your plan is adamantly to bluff the flop WHEN he whiffs. This is not well planned. Just like a c-bet, you keep saying. It's NOT a c-bet. You're NOT the PFR. You are effectively donking. MIN! As a BLUFF! Here's abetter idea. If you want him to fold, rip it in his face pre when you have fold equity. Pre-flop you cannot calculate EV for your post flop stab, and you can't even estimate your fold equity because you have no idea what the flop will bring. It is mathematically just not possible.

You can calculate all that you like but you are grossly overthinking this. You discovered somewhere that your solver actually has a sliver of a short-stack limp range, and you think that you're going to take this into a freeroll against a bunch of fish and outsmart them with it and prove what a guru you are.

This is the situation. It's a VERY simple spot. It folds to you on the SB 2 felts from the money, you are in 4th or 5th place. Do you think that J8s has a decent enough chance to hold up if you jam and are called? If yes, rip it in his face because you have a high chance to steal when you threaten 60% of his stack near the bubble. If not, fold it. You don't have a stack to play post-flop with. Don't bother getting cute. Don't overthink it.

Please tell me what the flop will be before you see it and we can calculate that EV together. ; )

"We can't calculate the EV on a limp and min bet bluff without seeing the flop and for limping pre to work we need to know this pre-flop."

That is incorrect.
We can calculate the EV of villain folding 50% (your number) of the time and treating the other 50% as we lose when ever he calls, this is "worse case" for us and a very useful baseline.

This is a very simple first step in the discussion without a whole bunch of "over thinking" as flop analysis is not required at this step.

So I invite you again to work out the EV on the limp-stab if:
i, villain folds flop 50%
ii, we lose the pot every time he calls.

Semprini · Aug 17, 2026

monkeytilter said:
That is incorrect.

No it's not. Your plan is to bluff THE FLOP! You can't calculate that EV pre-flop because you haven't seen the flop. To calculate your EV you need to know your equity in the spot. You can't calculate your flop equity before the flop. You can only approximate based on the strength of your cards against his 100% check range, and that approximation could be wildly off either way depending on the flop. It's not reliable math at all.

monkeytilter said:
So I invite you again to work out the EV on the limp-stab if:
i, villain folds flop 50%
ii, we lose the pot every time he calls.

That would be 50/50. So what is your point? I did not say that he folds the flop 50% of the time. I said your showdown value at the flop is roughly 50/50 against a 100% range if you get called. But you can't bank on that because he could flop stone cold nuts or air or anything in between and he will KNOW if he has stone cold nuts or air or how much equity he has in between, so he will make an informed action while you out of position need to hit the flop to continue because you have no idea what your fold equity is. He could have you dominated and then your EV is under 20% and your little limp stab bluff blows up in your face.

The other problem with this is that even at 50/50, your chance to win by jamming pre is probably 65%-80% (either by stealing or by doubling up) which smashes 50/50. It's clearly a better play.

I've done this math TWICE now and you've done none.

Show us your math that proves that limping and stabbing the flop is a more profitable play than jamming pre. I'll even let you jam the flop instead of min.

monkeytilter · Aug 17, 2026

Semprini said:
No it's not. Your plan is to bluff THE FLOP!
You can't calculate that EV pre-flop because you haven't seen the flop. To calculate your EV you need to know your equity in the spot. You can't calculate your flop equity before the flop.

Still wrong.
We can calculate the EV of bluffing any flop - simply assuming we just lose any time we get called - if we assign a call/fold %age to villain*.
Hand equities do not need to come into this as we can just assume worse case and assume we no equity when called!
It a simple expectation calc. and a very standard approach.

*If you don't want to assign a flop continue %age (across all flops) to villain then we can work the other way around and just do the MDF calculation:

MDF = POT SIZE / (POT SIZE + BET SIZE)

This tells us how often villain needs to continue (call/raise) on the flop to prevent us auto-profiting with a 100% stab frequency**

**I've simplified the "favourable flop" strategy to "any 3 cards" as again this is worse case, we can examine how villain must react this very naïve strategy and our likelihood of it's profitability maybe?

ICM Spot, Can I ever call?

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