Nash vs ICM (or SNG Wizard)

If you believe blinds are very tight you can push this. But it is a marginal push nevertheless. When one of the blinds call you are in a really bad shape. So I would wait for a better spot with my healthy 10BB stack and fold.

Hey!

I sense some confusion here
ICM is a modeling technique that is used in SNGs and MTTs to give us an idea about how much our stacks actually worth (since in SNGs we use chips to play instead of real money - doubling up in chips doesn't necessarily mean doubling up in equity).
The Nash Equilibrium calculator and the SnG Wizard calculators are BOTH ICM calculators.

The Nash ranges are equilibrium ranges - it means that if everyone would be playing that strategy, noone would want to deviate from that since he would lose money. It's sort of a balance point or something like that.

In reality tho, most people don't play equilibrium strategy (they don't even know such things exist), so that's why Wiz is useful: you can set how wide your opponents will call you and he will give you how wide you can push.

As I have mentioned, both of these are ICM calculators - the Nash gives you the equilibrium point, in Wiz you can adjust the ranges manually. If you input the Nash ranges into Wiz, you will get the exact same results as Nash. (small deviations may occur because of Wiz's handranking system, but nothing extraordinary)

Please be warned that Wiz's default ranges are almost never good!!! You have to play around with opponents ranges to see if you can push a certain card. What I would suggest to do is: input the Nash ranges to your villains, and then think about whether they will be tighter or looser and tighten or loosen their range accordingly.

As for this hand, I'd definitely push this.

Regards,
akrammon

p.s. Nash's Equilibrium has a zillion uses, SnGs are just one. check wiki if you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

Great post akrammon! Gonna sticky this thread

Thanks for the explanation. I better understand the tables now and how to use them in the end game.

One more question. How does SAGE fit in? Does it use ICM as well?

Originally posted by SecurityDrew
Thanks for the explanation. I better understand the tables now and how to use them in the end game.

One more question. How does SAGE fit in? Does it use ICM as well?

No

But it is almost the same as HU Nash ♦

I guess that will be confusing well enough without further explanation, so let me go into it.

In HU, there is no "risk-aversion". There is no ICM. Risk-aversion exists because (basically, simply put) double the chips don't worth double the equity. A good example for this is a DoN tourney. If you get ITM with 1 chip, it will be just as good as collecting all the chips. The risk-aversion effect is much smaller in reguler SnGs tho.
So, there is this modeling technique which we call ICM. It is to measure how risk-averse we have to be, and how much we have to deviate from simple pot-odds (also known as "ICM tax").

Now, when two people collide in an SnG, the other people (who already folded) win equity with their stacks remaining unchanged. That's where the ICM tax "goes" - the colliding people pay a "tax" for risking dropping out of a tourney, from which the others (who have already folded) benefit. Just imagine the situation that you are short stack on the bubble, and one of the midstacks collides with the bigstack (or the other midstack) and someone is out of the tourney. You are ITM, you have won a lot! Even tho you didn't do anything in the hand.

Why am I explaining this when you asked about SAGE?

Because all this doesn't apply in HU - there is noone to benefit from you colliding with the opponent. If you double up in chips, you have double the equity. In HU all is just pot-odds. There is no risk-aversion, the "who-covers-who" thing doesn't matter either, not anymore.

So that's why I said No, it does not use ICM. In HU, it is just pot odds.

BUT...
Nash equilibrium (in general) has nothing to do with ICM. It can be used with an ICM calculator, or just with simple pot odds (in HU for example) as well. (edit: and for a million other non-poker related things and games in general)

And SAGE is basically a very very clever formula to memorize the strength of individual hands. If you check a Nash HU push/fold chart tho, you will see that it is very very close to SAGE, if I'm not mistaken. I think that in the article about SAGE they mention that it is a close-to-equilibrium strategy.

Cheers,
maybe I will edit this into my original post if it was useful

@chenny
thanks, now I won't have to write it down ever again

Hey,
Nice long explanations ;).

Sorry to resurrect an old thread like this, but where can i find the Nash ranges for STT ?

Hi, unshpe
Welcome to PokerStrategy.com .

Once you have passed the quiz, or signed up with one of the affiliated poker rooms, then you will achieve bronze status.

If desired, you can also subscribe to the various status levels.

There are strategy articles for STT SnGs that describe Nash ranges -- I think you need Gold status for those.

Another option is to use Holdem Resources Calculator, which is a tool for SnG Players

I think that there might be a time-limited free trial for Holdem Resources Calculator -- check it out.

Whatever option you choose,
Best of Luck!
--VS

Thanks Vorpal :).