How To Improve Your Sit N Go Bubble Play With An ICM Calculator

Understanding ICM Can Help You Make Your SNG Play Profitable.
Refining Your Play With An ICM Calculator Can Help Those Profits Rocket!

A Good understanding of ICM Bubble Strategy is the basis of profitable Sit N Go Strategy. Making decisions based on dollar equity and not chip equity will give you a significant edge over opponents who do not do this. The next step to big SNG poker profits is to analyze your own play and find out how close to ‘optimally’ (in a mathematical sense) you are playing – this is where ICM Calculators come in.

If you are not yet familiar with poker’s Independent Chip Model (ICM) then read our introductory article before continuing with this one.

If you play a number of Sit N Go tournaments online you will encounter similar situations again and again. The blinds are high as a proportion of your stack (and your opponents stacks) leaving little or no room for post-flop play. Your options are to push all-in or to fold.

At this stage of the tournament the ‘correct’ ranges of hands to do this will are solvable with mathematics. That is, there is an optimal play for each situation. This is based on ICM principals and your assessment of what your opponents will push and call with. As you gain experience you can find out those optimal push-fold plays by (expensive) trial and error – or you can invest a few buy-ins in a software tool to do this for you right now!

ICM Calculators are not used while ‘in-play’ instead you upload your hand history after the SNG and find out which plays were ‘+$ev’ and which were ‘-$ev’. The example we will use is ‘SNG Wizard’, this is one of the best Sit N Go Poker Tools available and has a 30 day free trial available for those unsure of the benefits.

Once you have uploaded your hand history you will see a display like this:

This shows which hands you played ‘correctly’ and which ones the math indicates might have been played differently. Take the questionable hands and look at the detailed view.

This shows you the math, allows you to assign probable calling ranges to your opponents and then shows you whether your push (or fold) would have shown a profit or a loss.

The great thing about poker ICM calculators is that you will quickly learn the optimal ranges for pushing and folding which can be applied in real-life situations. Any future hand or situation you are unclear on can be separately uploaded and analyzed. Before you know it your Sit N Go bubble play will be significantly better than that of your opponents – leading to improved profits for each game you play.

Unlike some other SNG Poker Tools the functions of SNG wiz do not stop there. Situations where one or more opponents have limped into the pot can be analyzed, graphs can be used to display those push / fold ranges in detail. The easy to use graphics and interface allow you to check a variety of opponent calling ranges to see how often your all-in will get called.

Check out SNG Wizard today for the free 30 day trial – your results will improve so much you’ll wonder how you managed without it!!

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