Hey Barry,
I'll do my best to respond to all of your points.
1/4. I've always wondered how the fact that everyone has folded affects the strength of the BB's unknown 2 cards, but unlike what some people think I'm not actually good enough at math/programming to be able to figure it out. I've always assumed that the BB's hand will be a bit stronger on average but not by that much since Ace-rag hands are almost always folded in early position and most off suit Ace-rag hands will be folded in middle position. Some people will open Ax suited in middle position, but there are still a lot of people who will fold it.
That point brings me to your program, which I think has at least one flawed assumption. If I'm reading it correctly, you are assuming that A2s through A9s will be played from 1st and 2nd positions? I Just can't see the majority of players opening those hands from UTG or UTG+1, especially the lower half of that range. I'm not sure how much making those adjustments would affect the final result, but I definitely think it makes the chance of the BB waking up with Ax smaller. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the program.
Another thing that I'd like to add is that even if your numer is correct, it doesn't change the fact that 99% of tournament players will not adjust their calling range adequately. They'll be folding many of they're Ace-rags anyways, so it's not a big deal. If the play is +EV with your cards face up, imagine how +EV it is when you're cards are unknown... The "everyone folding" effect might reduce the ev of shoving by a little bit but nowhere near enough to render the play useless.
2. Yes, the number that Jimmy was referring to is for a 9 handed game. Obviously less antes means you can't shove as wide, but you can still shove pretty wide HU, especially if you're opponent is not good at calling ranges.
3. Online antes have gotten much bigger over the years. Full Tilt has the biggest antes I think, but Stars are also decently sized. Rarely is the ante smaller than 10% of the big blind. And of course live antes are pretty much always big.
5. I think this line of thinking is a slippery slope. In my mind tournaments are about finding edges and pushing them over and and over again. Even the small ones add up. When people start overvaluing their tournament life, they start playing scared, which is just about the worst thing you can do. Players who are playing scared will just get eaten up in a tough field and are basically drawing dead to win. Plus, why pass up one edge in favor of another when you can just take the immediate edge AND the future ones? I think people vastly overestimate how often you will bust when shoving 20 BBs when you are usually getting called between 10% and 20% (sometimes less) of the time (not to mention you're pot equity is usally at least 30%).
6. The cool thing about tournaments is that the ICM effect most significantly impacts the caller not the shover.
7. Yes of course. I never said I would ALWAYS shove 20 BBs in these types of spots. If the big blind is super tight and is not going to reshove me, then I will just make a standard raise because that is clearly the superior play. But against tougher (this could mean either better players or simply someone who hates to fold) blinds where it is not clear whether a standard raise is better than a shove, I usually prefer to take the easy chips by shoving rather than playing out of position.
8. Yep.
9. Okay, but why not take the immediate edge and also take the future edges? Tournament poker is about accumulation after all...
10. In my experience these types of players are actually kind of rare in tournaments. Most tournament players like to just see the free flop. But I'm not against going for the limp reraise against the right player.
11/12. Yes, the best part about shoving 20 BBs is folding out good hands that would have either shoved or reraised you if you had just open raised. Those hands that you are folding out SHOULD be snap calling against you're actual range, but instead they are making a pretty signifcant mistake by folding. Isn't that a classic example of example of Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker?
13. For the most part in tournaments, where your oppositon is often complete unknowns and generally weaker, balancing is completely unnecessary and flat out suboptimal. But yes against good players who know me well, I have to mix it up.
I hope some of that made sense!
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