hello. It was totally the right call. Without checking my guess if you ran it thru a Nash calculator is that at Cev it’s worth at least 3% of the prize pool. You say it’s ITM so I guess if there’s a big pay jump coming up you could pass. [edit: Under ICM it’s usually a fold, depending on stack distribution…not sure why I wrote before it’s a call under ICM]. ICM spots are final table or other situations where there is significant pay jumps. Its a whole huge separate part of the game where different dynamics come in to play depending on whether you are a large stack, a medium, or a small stack. Generally, the large stack should be playing a wider range than normal in order to abuse the ICM dynamic at the final table, forcing smaller stacks to fold more than usual to ensure they ladder up the pay scale. Medium stacks should be plating conservatively, hoping the small stacks bust. Small stacks generally play a normal Cev game, they have the least to lose from the ICM dynamic. Using your 55 example therefore, if you were a medium stack 55 is a definite fold, but as a small stack it’s a definite call.

Really Vpip here is not too useful and you should IMO have a HUD for SB open limp/ SB steal%…but even if I had a large sample and he’s opening really tight from SB I’m still snap calling. 22 is also a snap. Play around with ranges using an ICM calculator.. which I expect you have. If you haven’t, and money is an issue, then you should prioritise an ICM calculator over TPE membership until you’re up to speed with push/fold.

Hello again. Not sure about free ICM tools, I literally can’t help you there at all. In fact you probably know more than I about them. Yes, a solver. But not a multi street solver such as CREV or pioSOLVER. These are very expensive and deal with post flop scenarios, as well as pre flop. Pre flop shove/call/3bet calculators are less expensive. I’m thinking programs such as SNGWizard, Holdem Resources Calculator…ICMizer. They are all solvers. Even PokerSnowie is a solver. Heck…even Poker Equity Calculator on my phone is a solver, don’t get intimidated by the word. High stakes pros talk in hushed tones about their “solver solutions”, and us mere mortals shiver and blush as the software and their analysis seems light years ahead of where we are.

ICM calculator is not a great word for what these things do. in fact it is a misnomer. What they should really be called is Nash calculators. John Nash was a mathematician who came up with game theory. I’m not sure he had a direct interest in poker, (game theory has a wide and varied application), but we use Nash ranges in poker as a baseline, game theoretically optimal solution to any particular situation. In other words and in plain English, Nash gives us the correct line to take in a hand pre-flop, based on mathematics. You can’t argue with it, it is objective fact. When you are looking at a Nash solution, you are looking at a small part of the very solution to the game. (It is only correct to move away from Nash ranges in order to exploit an opponent who is also not playing Nash).

In poker tournaments we have two areas of the game where Nash ranges are different. The first is ChipEV, or cEV. In this stage of the tournament (the most of it), we are playing as though it is a cash game…straightforward poker, uninfluenced by any imminent pay jump. (You can Google the exact definitions of cEV and $EV yourself). When pay jumps start coming in to play in the tournament, our Nash ranges change. For instance, what was a profitable call under cEV may become a costly mathematical error when you risk losing a lot of money by getting busted just before a significant pay jump. ICM is also known as DollarEV, or $EV.

What’s the point? Just that ICM calculators do give you “correct” solutions under $EV. But the vast majority of the game is under cEV, and the calculator will give you “correct” solutions here too. (When you are inputting a hand in to an ICM calculator, you must be careful to tell the machine which equity model you need: $EV or cEV. $EV calculations are especially important on the final table.) 

I use Holdem Resources Calculator personally, which I love, but I hear the UI of ICMizer2 is more user friendly. 

Sorry if I babbled on…I just drank a whiskey and coke because I had QQ beaten by 99 on the exact Final Table bubble in a hyper…there I had to get that bad beat story off my chest over here! I hope what I have written is correct, but I’m just one step up from a recreational player, so if I got anything wrong anyone feel free to put me right please…