[AlwaysWrong]

ICM is used mostly for SNGs / final tables. But there's no fundamental reason for this. There isn't a tool that I know of that lets you input arbitrary numbers of people and arbitrary prize structures, so I guess if you actually want to use ICM you'd have to write it.

When you're very far from the money chip EV is close to $EV. At the beginning of a tournament 10% of the people will get paid, and most of that goes to the top 5 spots. If you're in a tournament that only pays one spot, chip EV always = $EV. Very far from the money it's fairly obvious that the assumption that the two are equal is a good one. Conversely, this assumption breaks down the most late in the tournament when you're close to the money (on the bubble eg) or close to a pay jump.

Your tournament is like a tournament that pays 36% of the seats. This is more than gets paid in a SNG. If you want to just get a really rough idea, doubling up on the first hand of a SNG only gets you to 1.84x your original $EV. If you assumed you were getting to 2x you'd be making a significant error - one big enough that you wouldn't want to trust your results it was at all close.

This is super-rough, as it doesn't take into account people "starting" the tournament with different stack sizes or prize structure, or anything, but it's an illustration of how far wrong the CEV=$EV assumption could be.

As to table image, I think good players tend to overestimate their opponents' adjustments. Unless you've been pushing A TON so that it's completely obvious that you're often pushing on trash, people will be overly cautious in dealing with you. Since your stack is pretty decent now, someone with 77 just can't be too excited about gambling. Even if you're raising light they're probably not that much of a favorite.


If you make a standard raise here, most of the time you'll also steal the blinds, and most of the time you fail you'll be heads-up with the big blind. Playing out of position shouldn't be too big of a concern, imo.