Why You Should Be Shoving A Lot More On the Bubble If You Want to Cash
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You're deep in a tournament. The bubble is approaching. You’ve got a serious shot at locking up some money. The adrenaline is kicking in, and your instinct is to tighten up. Big bets become small, small bets become checks. That instinct is usually right, and solvers have backed it up for years.
Key word being 'usually'.
According to the GTO Wizards, sometimes the best play is the complete opposite. GTO Wizard’s postflop ICM solver shows that in certain high-pressure spots, the right move is to shove the flop. Even if it means betting two or three times the size of the pot.
Don't believe us? Let's break it down with an example below.
When to Shove Pre Flop in ICM Spots
Okay, so you’re on the money bubble with 22 big blinds in the LoJack. The big blind has you covered three to one. The flop comes Q♦8♥7♦ and the big blind checks, as they do 100 percent of the time in this setup.
In a Chip EV environment, GTO Wizard shows a mix of betting options. You can go anywhere between 25 and 75 percent pot, but in the end, the solver’s AI bet sizing ultimately prefers a medium-sized bet, around half pot.
But when ICM comes into play, things shift, and they shift dramatically. The solver now wants you to check most of the time, around 85 percent. But when you do bet, it no longer wants you to go small. It likes an all-in.
Why? Because your tournament equity as the short stack is tied up in survival. Doubling up barely moves the needle, but busting costs you everything. The solver’s solution is to shove and end the hand right now, without giving your opponent a chance to make your life harder on the turn or river.
The hands that shove are all the ones you're thinking of. Strong but vulnerable values like AxAx, KxKx, AxQx, and KxQx. And if you're going to bluff, GTO Wizard says you better have blockers. Think A♠6♠ blocking [AQ] and 6♠5♠, those sorts of hands. The key thing to remember is these aren’t bets looking for value, they are bets designed to get folds.
These situations are where the value of GTO Wizard’s ICM solver becomes clear. It identifies lines that contradict your natural instincts. If you are only studying Chip EV spots or applying final table logic to the bubble, you might miss this kind of aggressive approach, and you might miss that money bubble.
And if you're still skeptical, you can try it out for yourself on GTO Wizard by using the node locking tool to see what happens if you don’t shove. You’ll see the big blind raise more often, and your small bet puts you in a brutal spot on the turn.
Know When to Fire
GTO Wizard helps you understand when aggression is the right kind of protection. Its AI bet sizing, ICM models, stack customisation, and node locking features let you prepare for the moments that matter most.
Check out GTO Wizard below, and grab a 10% discount from PokerNews.
