Building a Better Sit-N-Go Poker Pushbot

Building a Better Sit-N-Go Poker Pushbot

I’ll probably be berated by some people for making this post. They’ll view it as “tapping the tank” so to speak – educating the fish. However, I think poker players who worry about these things are generally being silly. Most of the fish I know have already read any number of poker books. Many of them also frequent online poker forums. But for some reason it just doesn’t sink in, or they don’t take the time to really study and apply what they read anyway.

In my last article I mentioned pushbotting near the end of a sit-n-go poker tournament. Many hold’em players, both good and bad, follow this approach. Most of them don’t have much rhyme or reason as to how they go about it. They push based on reads. They push based on their gut. Or they use some set of formulas like always push with any two on the button in an unraised pot. So should pushbotting be based on? The answer lies in something called the Independent Chip Model (ICM). The purpose of this article is to simply lay out my plan for learning to be a better pushbot.

First, what is ICM? I’m not a math geek so I won’t go into the mathematical formulas. Essentially ICM uses equity to assign a value to chips in order to determine optimal poker play. However, a number of smarter poker players than I have already described ICM better than I could, so I’ll simply include a few links at the bottom of this page for further reading. If you feel so inclined feel free to read through those links to satisfy yourself that ICM is indeed a valid basis for pushbotting. Personally I don’t need to do that. All the evidence I need is the knowledge that most of the very best sit-n-go players use it.

So how does one learn to be an ICM pushbot? Well, here’s my plan, using some software tools available for purchase on the Internet. By the way, I am not connected with any of them and in absolutely no way compensated for recommending any of these.

The tools are:

- Sit n Go Power Tools (SNGPT)
- Bubble Trainer (BT)
- SitNGo Wizard (SNGWIZ)

SNGPT is a software package that determines the correct play according to ICM, it can be used to analyze actual hands you’ve played in tournaments or to make up hands to analyze. You can change a range of variables such as stack sizes, position, opponent hand ranges, etc to see how they impact your decision to push, call a push, or fold. The software’s author is recognized as an authority on ICM and his reputation for excellent service and updating of the software is excellent.

Once you’ve played with SNGPT awhile, analyzing hands, you can test yourself using Bubble Trainer, which is web-based. Bubble Trainer essentially places you at a short-handed hold’em table and places you in a variety of situations that call for using your ICM skills. It then tells you whether you acted correctly or incorrectly. Again, you can review the hands that you missed in SNGPT, change variables and figure out why the move was incorrect. Read here for exactly how to use SNGPT.

Since the math behind ICM is fairly complex, it isn’t really practical to be doing it at the table. Therefore the goal is for proper pushbot play to become intuitive. This is where using BT comes in. Through pure repetition and analyzing mistakes, you hone your pushbotting until it’s second nature.

The third tool, SNGWIZ, is fairly new. It essentially provides the analytical tools of SNGPT and the ability to quiz yourself like BT in a single package. It has a nicer interface and offers some features that SNGPT does not. For instance, it handles opened pots with multiple limpers or raisers and overcalls or three-way showdowns, which SNGPT does not.

Price comparison: SNGPT is $79 to buy the software. Bubble Trainer is $24.99 PER MONTH. SNGWIZ is $99 to buy the software. Yes, they’re expensive and only useful to someone who will take the time to learn them and use them.

So SNGWIZ really looks like a much better deal. The biggest knock on SNGWIZ is that it’s untested. It was only released last month and early versions were buggy. It may or may not be fixed. Also, the author of SNGPT is well-known and well-respected, and has built up a very loyal following, whereas the SNGWIZ author is simply not well-known yet. I’ll let you make your own decision as to which makes more sense for you. I’ve bought SNGPT and SNGWIZ, and used BT’s trial but I don’t have a clear preference yet myself.

So those are the tools available. Now on to the plan!

First, this is how SNGPT’s author recommends using his tool. This is essentially how I intend to go about using either SNGPT or SNGWIZ. He also has some very well-written tutorials included with the SNGPT software that you don’t get with SNGWIZ, as well as future tutorials he’s already promised.

So my plan for using these tools is very simple.

Step 1 – Spend a few days replaying old tournament histories in either SNGPT or SNGWIZ to get a feel for places I’ve been pushbotting poorly (I’ve done this step).

Step 2 – Spend a few days playing with SNGWIZ’s quiz function or BT, applying what I’m hopefully learning. Then replaying the missed hands in SNGPT or SNGWIZ.

Step 3 – Prior to each session, I’ll spend 30 minutes with either Bubble Trainer or SNGWIZ’s quiz function to warm up my skills.

Step 4 – Following each session, I’ll replay key hands in SNGPT or SNGWIZ to compare my actions to optimal ones.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat steps 3 & 4. There. That’s the easy part!

There’s one crucial skill that I haven’t touched on, which is easily the most difficult to master. A key variable when using ICM to determine the optimal play is the range of hands that your opponent will push with or call with. In order to get a sense for this, you have to pay attention throughout the tournament. Taking player notes is also helpful. You’ll have to get a sense for what kind of player he is. Is he a loose caller? Is he hyper aggro? Will he raise with any two cards? Will he call and all-in with only the top 5% of hands? In order to use pushbotting effectively it is crucial that you get a sense of this and effectively assign ranges of hands.

Now there are a couple of tools that can help you with it during a game. I’d note that they may be of very limited use, and should certainly not be relied on exclusively. They are:

- Pokertracker (PT)
- PokerAces Heads Up Display (PAHUD)

PT is a software tool that records data from the games you play or observe using hand histories that your poker room places on your hard drive. PokerAces HUD is a PokerTracker add-on that displays statistics that you choose on your table display to help you see what kind of player you’re up against. What you want to do is configure your PokerTracker software to continually import data and update the stats displayed by PokerAces HUD.

A caveat. First, if you’re playing according to the strategy in my last article, your style of play will change throughout the tournament. It’s very possible your opponents’ will as well. So stats recorded early in the tournament may be useless later in the tournament. You can set filters in PokerAces HUD to only use data recorded when a certain range of players is at the table, which can be useful but limits the amount of data being used. The amount of data recorded from a single SNG may not be very useful. If you play against the same opponents frequently, PokerTracker will record more and more data on your opponents, which hopefully makes PokerAces HUD more useful in assigning a range of hands. The statistics I have PokerAces HUD set to display are: Voluntarily put money in pot, Preflop raise %, Attempted to steal %, Called preflop raise %, Folded small blind to steal %, Folded big blind to steal %, and Aggro Factor.

Other than PokerTracker & PokerAces HUD and using player notes, I don’t know of any tools to help with this. Since it’s a crucial factor in pushbotting decisions, it’s imperative that you practice, practice, practice this skill. Don’t just keep playing and expect it to come. Consciously practice the skill. When it’s late in a tournament continually be thinking, what kind of player is he? What will he push/call with?

Collected ICM Articles:
What is ICM?
What is ICM (#2)?
Links to more basic ICM articles.