ICM recommended starting hands

Posted by tomfmason 1 year, 3 months ago 6 comments

I have seen several people asking about "icm starting hands". I wrote a blog post several years ago about independent chip model. In that post I cover an example situation showing the usage of icm. 

The problem is that this is common place knowledge. It was a big deal back when I wrote that article because very few people, online or live, knew of the concept. With the power of the internet came the rapid spread of knowledge. In the poker world this can be especially so do to great poker forums. Some of these forums have thousands of very knowledgeable poker players posting theory on a regular basis. 

Starting hands are not set in stone and vary a great deal based on many factors. Some of these factors include stack size relative to opponents, opponent tendencies, your table image and much more. Basically, the old saying "it depends" applies here.

For example, lets say you have a relatively tight table image, are on the button and it is folded to you with two weak-tight payers in the blinds. In that example, you can feel very comfortable raising with a wide range of hands. The two players in the blinds will most likely be reluctant to play mediocre hands out of position. 

Now, lets take another example. In this example, you are in the same position but have an aggressive, if not reckless image do to a recent run of cards. When you raise here the blinds are going to be thinking about your prior action and put you on a wide range of hands. You may want to be more selective when choosing your hands. I am not saying be a nit but play a slightly tighter range than your opponents think you are playing.

This concept can also be applied to calling ranges. Many times, later in a tournament, you are in a position where a short stack from mid-late to late position has shoved on you. Depending on the opponents skill level they could be shoving a very wide range of hands. This is where being observant really pays off. If the opponent is someone that focuses mainly on their cards instead of opponents or more importantly "spots"; you can comfortably assume that they have a decent to good hand. They could still be shoving pretty wide here but no where near as wide has an opponent that appears to have a better understanding of the meta game behind poker.

The moral of the story is to be observant and look for good "spots" to act instead of focusing specific starting hands. Basing plays on a set guideline is strategic flaw in my opinion.