Hyper turbo cis 6 max. Learn to drag the CIS: a winning strategy. Factors Affecting Open Rates

6-max cash games, like any other discipline in poker, in terms of the profitability of a particular style of play, is highly dependent on your table environment. One day, a tight-aggressive approach brings you fabulous sums, and the next you barely break even with it. Understanding what style of play will be most profitable at any particular table at a particular minute can greatly increase your income.

For experienced player A 6-max player who is capable of playing multiple styles and can vary his effective range based on factors such as playing environment and position will be one of the most successful players at the table. But these skills are the hardest to master. This article will look at a few ideas for adjusting your range to different kind circumstances.

early positions

Playing UTG (and to a lesser extent from mid positions like hijack or UTG+1) in 6-max is just disgusting. There is no way you can make as much money as you make from other non-blind positions, because position has always been, and will always be, one of the strongest factors in the game. Perhaps for 6-max games, position is one of the most complex and interesting aspects of the game, and analyzing all the incoming and outgoing data from a positional perspective can take years.

The voluntary decision to play out of position puts you in a position where it is more difficult for you to make the right value bet/bluff decision, and it makes it easier for your opponents. Out of position, you have little to no control, less information, and fewer options. In 6-max, in the tightest variations for the position (20-25 VPIP), you should open the game with a reasonable tight range.

Here is an example of a reasonable standard range for a competent player at the $100-400 NLHE levels at a standard tight table:

All pocket pairs

A-Ts+
A-Jo+
QJs+
K-Qo

As you progress towards the middle positions, you can add a couple more hands, depending on your environment. Most decent suited connectors and Ah hands should not be included in your open range (again, if we are talking about playing at a relatively tight table).

Adjustments

If the table gets tighter, you can add a couple of hands to your UTG range, but add the right hands. Since players with a tighter range will most often call you, you need to avoid dominated hands like KQ and AJ, it is better to replace them with some well-hidden suited connectors or combination A-x(2-5) suited. These hands will be easier to play post-flop and you will be less likely to run into situations where you deprive yourself of value. It's better to protect yourself in advance from unpleasant situations that you can get into when playing with TAGs and nits.

At looser tables, the approach should be reversed. Since you will get called preflop more often, you need to stick to strong hands. It is better to sacrifice small pairs (22-66) and instead add hands like K-Ts and K-J to your range, which can pair well with the board, allowing you to comfortably play against weak ranges. If you're constantly getting called preflop and having trouble playing against multiple opponents postflop, then you should greatly reduce your open raises by removing all marginal hands from your open range. It is better to play with fewer hands, but be sure of their strength, so you will earn more.

Cutoff

Cutoffis the first position where you can start to go crazy. After all, stealing the blinds can add a lot to your win rate. Therefore, it is worth looking for any opportunity to torture players in the blinds, isolate with limpers, or tribut other players. All of this can be done thanks to the fact that you will have position during the hand with respect to all players except the button.

In most tight games, you can afford to open fairly freely. If you see a table full of weak tight regulars or passive fish limping in front of us, then you can open the game with the entire range below, but raise a little more then (say, 3.5xBB + 1BB for each limper). Our goal is to play almost perfectly preflop, because then we will make fewer mistakes postflop.

A bloated pot means you will be able to win more money when you take down the pot, assuming your post-flop skills are good. In addition, it will be much easier for you to put pressure on other players if you decide to pull a bluff. A big pot can provoke your opponents into making big mistakes. So provoke them! Also (quite a debatable point, but still), then the pot can get big enough to deprive your opponent of a stack when you still catch something really strong in those rare moments.

A reasonable range for this position would be something like:

All couples

A-2s+
A-8o+
Most suited queens (Q-8s is the low end if you know you're better than most players at the table)
All Broadways
All suited connectors 4-5s+
Most suited gappers 8-6s+
Some suited 3-gapeers 7-Ts+

Adjustments

If you're being played by a maniac or a nimble nit who limps, then you should narrow your range. Isolating with a maniac is just crazy, because you will be 3betted and you simply will not have money left to turn around postflop with weak hands. Against these guys, don't trap yourself, wait for a real hand and drag them for value. Isolating with a very tight limper usually means you'll get reraised by some of the aces or kings this player has been waiting for. In this situation, most playable hands are best played limp.

Depending on what kind of player will limp, your range of hands to isolate should also change. If a weak tight player is limping, then we should avoid dominance and reverse implied odds by playing more medium connectors and suited gappers. Of course, it is possible to isolate with hands like QTo, but remember that most of the time we will not play with cards, but will play our position, initiative and the opportunity to fire a few barrels.

If a loose player with 70/10 stats limps into the game, then you can isolate with him with almost any cards, but if a loose-passive fish like 40/15 limps from, say, middle position, then we should limit our range to broadway hands, like KJo, and avoid suited connectors like J-9s.

Our goal against such fish is to make a top pair and extract the maximum value from it. Against weak tight players our goal will be to hit the flop with a hidden strong hand and then just value bet all the way to the river. Obviously, we can't isolate with a smart TAG/LAG, since these players almost never limp.
If a loose-aggressive opponent is sitting to your left, it's obvious that you need to narrow your range. Ideally, of course, you'd want to look for a comfortable table and a place where you don't have to be afraid to raise to isolate, as someone might squeeze you.

Sometimes you will have to play with strong loose-aggressive players to your left. In such circumstances, stick to a tight range (something like what I suggested for UTG+1). The bottom line is that you will often see 3-bets and cold calls from these players, and they will snap post-flop as they know you are generally playing with a weak range. If the blinds (especially the BB) are playing tight, then keep a close eye on their "fold in the big blind" stats. The larger it is, the wider you should open the game, if you take volumes of hundreds of thousands of hands, then stealing blinds will be one of the most profitable means of earning there.

If there is a weak passive fish in the blinds, or a tight, nit player, then you can afford to open the game with a very wide range. If the blinds/button is any combination of a good TAG/LAG player and a maniac, then stick to the traditional range width and play mostly for value.

Button

Buttonare the alpha and omega of 6-max games when it comes to long-term profits. From here you can see everything that happens at the table. You feel like a general watching the battle from a high hill. Thanks to the fact that you have position, you can play a myriad of hands that would give old-school traditionalists a heart attack. But the key, of course, is understanding how the table plays and exactly when to play this super wide button range.

If you are a good post-flop player and have a decent understanding of how your opponents will react to your moves, then you can profitably open 100% of hands from the button if no one has opened the pot before you. You can practice: set aside a day on which you will open 100% of hands from the button. In this way, you will be very advanced in understanding the strength of the position. Obviously, such a strategy will rarely produce any kind of stable positive result, but this way you can quickly learn the main lesson: in a 6-max, position is more important than your cards.

It is also worth keeping an eye on the blinds, if there are weak players sitting there who often fold, then such a 100% range can end up making you a lot of money in the long term. If you study your earnings in 6-max poker, you will almost always see especially large numbers when playing from the cut-off and the button. I have already said why this is so, the position is 2/3 of your success!

Sit and Go tournaments have long been one of the most popular game formats in online poker. Thousands of such tournaments take place every minute on all poker sites, and many players have become poker professionals thanks to the SNGs.

As you probably already know, the main difference between SNGs and MTTs is that sit and gos do not have a specific start, the tournament will start when a certain number of participants register. The most common SNGs are heads-up, 6-max and full ring (9 or 10 players). Such variants of the tournament are usually called single-table (STT SNG). But there are also multi-table SNGs, so in this format any player can find a tournament variant to their taste.

Based on the rate at which the blinds rise, SNGs can be standard, turbo, or hyper-turbo. And of course, each format has its own specific strategies for the best game.

Popularity of the CIS

Why are these tournaments so popular? The main reason is undoubtedly their frequency. To beat variance, one good option is to play more poker. SNG tournaments are constantly going on, and you can play several at the same time. Once you master the basic winning strategy, you can quickly gain experience by playing dozens of these tournaments in a session.

Also, the advantage of the SNG is that the session will be shorter than when playing MTT. Poker players like to plan their time, and in the SNGs you can almost predict exactly how long your tournament will last.

Of course, in poker there is no single answer to the question of how to play to consistently win. But SNG tournaments have a fairly detailed winning strategy, as they have a clear structure - the amount of prize money and prize money are usually almost the same for all SNGs. So it's quite possible to think mathematically the right game, based on the ICM model, when the tournament reaches the bubble stage.

The most common CIS strategy

The most common SNG strategy is to play tight in the early stages and then ramp up the aggression as the blinds start to rise and the stacks get short. Once the stacks are around 10bb, it's time to play a shove/fold. At this time, you have almost no opportunity for post-flop play, so you need to master the correct and timely all-in shoving.

This strategy is followed by most CIS regulars. But there is another option - from the very beginning, play in a loose-aggressive style in order to quickly fill a large stack, and then not be afraid of the bubble stage and pressure opponents. Such a strategy can lead to confident wins, but at the same time it is more risky, which means that such a game will be more variance.

Perhaps you should start with the first strategy and play tight in the early stages. Then, when you feel confident and show a good win rate, you can try the second strategy and start playing more risky.

You need to have a good understanding of the ICM model in order to play SRG with confidence. Once you master this pattern, you will see that there are times when you should fold even a hand as strong as AK. And there are situations when you need to go all-in with any two cards.

BUT the most important thing in CIS tournaments, as in any other field of study, it is practice. If you drive a car, try to remember your last trip now. I bet that you no longer pay attention to turning on the turn signals, looking in the rearview mirror and shifting gears. You perform all these actions automatically, without being distracted by unnecessary thoughts and without straining. And it's all thanks to practice.

You should achieve the same confident game process in poker. Playing with the right strategy should become an integral part of your personality. Play SNG all the time, and remember that the main thing is the distance. It is she who will show you what kind of player you are, and it is the distance that will teach you to make the right decisions. The main thing is to be able to learn from your mistakes.

You can make a lot of money fast at the 6-max hyper-turbo sit and go tables, and Christy Keenan will tell you how.

For those of you who don't often play this format of games, let me remind you that hypers are like a 6-max turbo, only on amphetamines. Instead of the traditional starting stacks of 50 or 75bb, you get 25bb and the blinds go up even faster than usual. The duration usually does not exceed 10 minutes, and the edgies here are below the salary of your local janitor. For an amateur player, the risk of such a fast and unpredictable game of poker never decreases and only fuels the interest. Moreover, hypers provide a lot of action and the opportunity to earn quick money. That is, to put it simply, hypers are the "roulette" of poker, with a lot of variance and potential risk.

Hyper-turbo is not for the faint of heart, just like poker math. Edge and money here can only be found by those who are able to overcome short-term, but sharp swings. Learn to handle variance. A sit and go player who is unable to handle swings is like a surgeon who is afraid of blood.

Edge search

As with most other poker games, for a good sit and go player, all of his edge is shown postflop. The more streets you play with the fish, the more mistakes he makes. In hyper-turbos, unlike deep-stack games, there is practically no post-flop play, so the edge of a good player is extremely limited. Advanced moves such as isolation, float and barreling are almost completely excluded from the game.

So why then does this format attract so many top regs? Yes, everything is simple. It's full of fish. As the popularity of hypers grows, standard games stop attracting as many people as they used to. And although the edges are not great here, they still exist.

Players often think that a small edge means a small profit. But it's not. Any edge, even a tiny one, can become extremely valuable in SNGs, especially with a large volume of games. Given that you need to make fewer decisions post-flop, you can play more tables. Therefore, the "long-term" can be rewound quickly enough.

That is, we think like this: a player with a 2% edge at a table in hypers will get much more profit per week than a player with 5% edge in a turbo, since the hyper drives away 1000 tables, and the turbo only 350. And given the fact that the duration hyper is reduced most often to 9 minutes, these numbers seem quite achievable. In the short term, of course, the variance may be simply unrealistic, but in the long term, given the speed of the games, you can easily reduce the variance to nothing in one evening.

It is also worth considering the rake, since usually in hypers it is 4% of the buy-in, as opposed to the standard 10%. Given this low rake, it's immediately clear why so many good players move to the hyper tables these days.

Early game strategy

It's easy enough to come to the conclusion that the most optimal strategy in this form of poker is an automated push-or-fold tactic, given the fact that the game encourages multi-tabling. In the end, just staying ahead of the endless blinds and antes while maintaining at least some equity is a task in itself. However, a starting 25bb stack still gives you some wiggle room for early stacking, allowing you to snipe at your opponents a bit as the end of the game approaches instead of trying to push your stack to second place.

Logic tells us that weak opponents will make more mistakes than regs. So try to get in a position where you can exploit your weak opponents and take as many of their chips as possible before other sharks do it. The beauty of hypers is that with a low rake and perpetually small effective stacks, you can afford to risk your tournament life early on, as it would be far from the same tactical mistake as in traditional SNGs.

You should take risky actions in order to accumulate chips quickly. Here's a quick example: our hero is dealt 7h-7d, he's in the cutoff with 15/30 blinds and a 3 ante. All six players are sitting with 500 stacks. The UTG player folds and the hijack player goes all-in.

In a normal situation, our hero would have folded in response to a 15BB all-in from a player from early-mid position, and without much doubt. But in hypers, all-in ranges are much wider and aggressive play in the early stages is highly encouraged. If the hijack all-in range is 20% (3-3+, A-2s+, A-4o+, K-10s+, K-Qo) and players behind you will only call this bet with 5.5% of the range (9- 9+, A-Qo+), then our hero needs to call this all-in.

In the early stages of these sit-and-gos, you need to learn how to use an adapted version of the small ball, where you will constantly try to take the stack with min-raises and c-bets. And don't be afraid to go all-in if you find a good spot to do so.

dough strategy

In one of my old PokerPlayer articles, in which I opened up on the bubble in standard 6-max, I talked about the importance of winning. After all, in order to break even at the end of the day in these games with a payout structure of 65-35%, the ratio of second to first place must be 2.8:1.

But in hypers, due to the low rake, this ratio drops to 2.7:1. In other words, the payout system is softer, which is why breaking the bubble is so important. The difference may seem negligible to you, but in this format of games, it's all about the ability to use any micro-edge that is available to you, since you will play a lot. And there is no guarantee that regularly ignoring situations with a minimum +EV (whether it be all-ins or folds) will not ultimately affect your profit drastically.

But the situation changes radically with another popular CIS format: hyper-satellites. Since in them the payout structure is reduced to 50% to 50%, because of which an all-in on the bubble can affect the insane ICM tax. After all, the prize for first place in a satellite is the same as for second place.

Whether you make it to the final two places with 2,999 chips, or with just one chip, you'll still get the same reward. The hand I want to show you as an example was played by one of my students. It illustrates this fact wonderfully: our hero sits with 1,480 chips and looks at his AdQds. He sits in the big blind. Blinds 50/100, ante 20. Button folds his hand, he has 475 chips left in the stack. The small blind goes all-in for his entire stack of 1,045 chips. In standard hypers, if our opponent is all-in 33% of the time, then our hero should call that all-in with his A-Qs without thinking at all.

His calling range should look something like this: 6-6+, A-9s+, A-10o+. Calling in this spot will cost us 3.69% of the total value pool in the form of equity and is an absolute +EV spot not to be missed. The hero is clearly ahead of Villain's all-in range and has a great opportunity to knock the middle stack out of the game and end up heads-up with a great chip lead. If he calls and loses, he will join the short stack in the fight for second place.

Now let's take the same scenario for a hyper-satellite. Against the same 33% range, A-Qs should be folded immediately. Hero can only call this all-in with J-J+, A-Ks, and even then, this range looks quite loose. Calling with A-Qs here would mean a loss of 0.50% of the price pool in terms of equity, and so the risk here seems like a direct path to zero.

Only if the hero knows that his opponent will go all-in more than 50% of the time, this bet can be called, and then you will receive only a 0.25% increase in equity. That is, this call will almost never be profitable, but quite often it can turn into a disaster for you. Remember, when you're playing a satellite with the same price pool for all the money, it's not necessarily your job to break the bubble. It's worth playing extremely tight and letting the other two players compete against each other.

Be aware of how the pay structure relates to ICM and how ICM influences your decision making. This is extremely important knowledge for hypers.

Heads-up strategy

In the heads-up stage, stacks are usually so small that your edge will be almost invisible. But you no longer need to worry about ICM. Since both players have already reserved 35% of the price pool for themselves, heads-up is just a freezeout tournament for the remaining 30%. And this means that EV of chips = EV of money, so any positive decision will mean potential earnings in the long run.

It's a big mistake to open-fold from the button (this move is only allowed with the rarest trash in your range), as you'll just be paying the small blind bets. Given position, almost any hand is worth at least a limp. Remember that effective stacks are so small that any pot is worth fighting for.

Let's look at the last example: you're heads-up with the blinds at 75/150, the ante is 15. Hero sits with a stack of 1,300, holding 7h-4s. Many of you have played open-fold in this situation. It's rubbish, but 255 chips in the center of the table make up 20% of our hero's stack. Too good a situation to just pass.

ICM aside, our hero should go all-in with almost any two cards if Villain's calling range is 35% (i.e. any pair, any ace, suited kings, K-5o+, Q-8s+, Q-10p+, J-9s+). And with a (relatively) strong hand like 7-4o, our opponent would have to call 41% of his hands for our all-in to be a negative EV decision. But even in this case, we should prefer open-folding instead of due to the fact that post-flop we will have the advantage of position.

Strongest poker players prefer 6-max tables to 9-max tables because

At short tables, they have the opportunity to play more hands per hour;
The average pot size in 6-max is higher than in 9-max;
They get the opportunity to play against weak opponents more often, as there are no UTG, UTG+1 and UTG+2 positions in the game.

By the way, recreational players are also more likely to play short tables because they can see more flops at them than at full tables.

Opening ranges 6-max

A solid poker strategy includes having smart open-raising ranges from every position. The better your ranges are designed, the easier and more profitable your post-flop play will be. Below are the opening ranges for 6-max tables:

As you can see, as we get closer to the button, our range expands. This is due to the fact that with a decrease in the number of players who will act after us, the likelihood that we will take the blinds already preflop increases. In addition, the fewer players left in the hand, the less likely it is to run into a strong hand.

Our range culminates in terms of width on the SB because we are only one opponent away from winning a pot of 1.5bb. However, we should be careful, because playing a loose range from the SB against a competent player in the BB will promise us a lot of problems: regularly clashing with 3-bets preflop and floats postflop.

Factors Affecting Open Rates

It must be understood that the above open-raise ranges are only a certain basic setting, and not unshakable rules. In other words, you will have to edit these ranges depending on many factors. Here is some of them:

Game tendencies of your opponents and reads on them;

The play trends of your opponents will have a huge impact on your opening ranges. For example, if the composition of the table is conservative, then we should open more loosely; if our opponents are loose and ready to 3-bet our openings often, we should instead open tighter to be able to counter their re-raises.

The level of your advantage over opponents;

The higher your edge above the field, the wider you should open because more hands being played means more opportunities to exploit your opponents' weaknesses. Similarly, if your opponents are strong players, then you will have to narrow your ranges in order to compensate for your lack of skill level with the strength of the range.

Rake.

The higher the rake percentage, the narrower our ranges should be. It should not be forgotten that those marginal hands that you play at zero, due to the rake, become negative.

Open bet sizing

Our shorthanded open raises should be between 2.25-3 big blinds. Smaller open sizing will give our opponents a great call price, which will create multiway situations that we of course want to avoid as our hand equity will decrease with each additional player. On the other hand, if we raise more than 3bb, it will force us to open tighter as our steal pot odds will be worse.

The exception to open-raising sizing is when playing from the small blind (3-4bb). Raising the sizing of the open from the SB is due to the fact that the BB has position on us, and his 1bb is already in the pot, which will encourage him to defend relatively loosely. We, on the other hand, want to discourage him from defending his wide range, so the only thing we can do is give him worse pot odds by increasing the size of the open.

Want to win fast? You can make a lot of money in 6-max hyperturbo tournaments - Christy Keenan explains how.

For those who don't know - hypers are like regular 6-max turbo tournaments, only on amphetamines. Instead of the standard 50 or 75bb starting stack, players are given 25bb and the blinds go up faster. Tournaments often do not last even ten minutes, and the advantage in the class is so small that it is amazing. For lovers of a quick resolution of the conflict - this is just right. Therefore, hypers are a suitable option for those who love huge action and are looking to cut the dough in a quick way. At least in the short term, hypers are just a feast for those who like to take risks, despite the huge variance.

Hyper-turbo tournaments are not for the faint of heart, but they are not the simple lottery games that many claim. You can find an advantage in them and make big money if you can control tilt and handle short-term downswings well. Learn to accept variance. Being a sit and go player who can't handle a downswing is like being a surgeon who's afraid of the sight of blood.

We find an advantage

In standard sit & go's, most of a good player's edge comes post-flop. The more hands a fish plays, the more mistakes it can make. In hyper turbo tournaments, where deep-stacked play is not possible, and where post-flop play is rare, the margin of good players is extremely limited. Certain tricks of advanced players such as isolating, floating and barreling are almost out of the question.

Why then does this format attract top regulars? Simply put, where there are fish, there will be sharks. The advantage is not so great, but it certainly exists.

One of the common mistakes that many believe is that a small edge creates only a small profit. However, in sit n gos, the odds are always small, and they are incredibly important, especially if the intensity of the game is not a problem. With fewer decisions after the flop good player can keep track of a large number of tables. And often the "long-term perspective" will not be so far away.

Think of it this way: A player with a 2% hyper table edge will earn significantly more in a week than someone with a 5% turbo table edge, assuming they play 1,000 hypers against 350 turbo tournaments during that time. The average duration of hypers is around 9 minutes, such numbers seem logical. In the short term, the variance can be large, but here the distance is gained much faster, and everything will level out very soon.

The rake should also be taken into account, it is usually around 4% of the buy-in, instead of the standard 10%. Given the lower rake, it's easy to understand the appeal of hypers to good players.

Early game strategy

Since the game is played on a huge number of tables, it is easy to assume that everything will be done automatically - push or pass. After all, constantly keeping up with ever-increasing blinds and antes to maintain fold equity is a challenge in itself. However, a 25bb stack has some agility, and if you get chips early, it will allow you to constantly sting opponents towards the end of the tournament, instead of sitting out to second place with a short stack.

Logic dictates that weak players will make more mistakes than regulars. If so, create an opportunity for yourself to exploit their game and take their chips before the other sharks do. The beauty of hypers is that with low rake and ever-shrinking stacks, putting your tournament destiny in jeopardy early on isn't the sort of tactical blunder it would be in more traditional Sit n Go formats.

You need to take calculated risks in order to build a stack quickly. Here's a small example: Hero is dealt 77 in the cutoff, blinds 15/30 ante 3. All six have a starting stack of approximately 500 chips. The UTG player folds and the hijack goes all-in.

Usually a hero should fold to a 15bb all-in from early/middle position without much thought. However, the ranges are wider in the hypers, and aggressive play in the early stages is rewarded later on. If Hijack is shoving 20% of his hands (3-3+, A-2s+, A-4o+, K-10s+, K-Qo) and players behind him only call 5.5% of his hands (9-9+, A- Qo+), you need to be ready to push on the stack.

In the early stages, you also need a smallball approach where you throw constant jabs with minraises and cbets. And don't be afraid to show up when you see the right opportunity.

Bubble strategy

In my article on bubble play in standard 6-max SNGs, I talked about the importance of cashing in. You have to take something from prize fund in the structure of 65-35% and in the payout ratio of the second place to the first 2.8:1.

In rake-adjusted hypers, the ratio drops to 2.7:1. In other words, payouts are smoother. The difference may seem insignificant, but in such conditions of using the slightest odds and the frenzied intensity of the game, nothing is more important than constant EV + moves (whether it be all-ins or folds).

In another popular form of Sit n Go, things change a lot. I'm talking about hyper-satellites. With a payout structure of 50-50% calling all-in on the bubble is very expensive in ICM. It's a satellite, after all, and second place pays the same as first place.

It doesn't matter if you get to the prize zone with 2,999 chips or just one. This is highlighted in the next hand played by one of my students. Hero has 1,480 chips, sees AQ in the big blind, blinds 50/100 ante 20. Button (475 stack), folds, small blind goes all in with 1,045 stack. In a standard hyper where Villain would shov 22% of the time, the hero would call with A-Qs and five the monitor.

His calling range would be somewhere around 6-6+, A-9s+, A-10+. The call brings in 3.69% of the total prize pool and is definitely an EV plus, an opportunity not to be missed. Hero is way ahead of Villain's all-in range, and calling provides a great opportunity to go heads-up with a chip advantage. If he calls and loses, it's easy to join the short stack in the fight for survival.

Now consider the same example in a hyper satellite. Against the same 33% all-in range, A-Qs must fold. The hero can only call with J-J+, A-Ks, and even then this call will be considered loose. Calling with A-Qs would mean losing 0.50% of the equity prize pool and risking a seemingly straight road to evenly distributed money.

Only when the Hero knows that the opponent is all-in with more than 50% of his range, he can call, and then the expectation will not exceed 0.25%. In short, you can't make a good call here, but a catastrophic one is. Remember, when playing in a satellite with the same prizes, the big stack is not good at destroying the bubble in any way. He must play very tight, allowing two other players to fight for the vacant prize.

Knowing how structure relates to ICM and how ICM influences decision making is vital in hypers.

Heads-up strategy

By the time it gets heads up, stacks are usually so small that there is rarely a big advantage. However, you don't have to worry about ICM anymore. Both players have already secured 35% of the prize pool, heads-up will decide who will get the remaining 30%. If so, then the chip is EV = $EV, and anything that has a positive expectation should be used to the maximum.

With anything but the most outright rubbish, folding from the button is a mistake, as the loss of chips that have been in your small blind is quite significant with such small stacks. Everything in position deserves at least a limp. Remember, with such short effective stacks, you should strive to win any pot, and fight for it furiously.

Consider the last example. Heads-up. Blinds 75/150 ante 15. Hero has a stack of 1,300 and sees 74. Many would fold right there. It's garbage, but there are 255 chips in the center of the table, about 20% of the hero's stack. Too good a situation to ignore.

Independent of ICM, Hero can go all-in with any two cards if Villain's calling range is 35% (any pair, any ace, any suited king, K-5o+, Q-8s+, Q-10o+, J-9s+). And with a (relatively) strong hand like 7-4o, our opponent needs to call with at least 41% of hands for an all-in to be negative in EV. Limping will also be preferable to open-folding due to the fact that position advantage will appear post-flop.