Quote Originally Posted by Xanadu
Well, how bad was his call? Definitely a bad call, but not nearly as bad as you think. And not as bad as your push. His heart was in the right place, but he was really only a little too loose on the call if he assumed you were pushing any 2. If you are pushing any 2 (I'm assuming he's in the BB, otherwise it's a horrible call from the SB), he only needs 95o or better to break even ICM wise. With a more reasonable assumption that you were pushing top 70%, he needs T8o, 97s or better.

Having run through the #s, if you are pushing 70% (95 is right at the bottom of 70%), and he calls with 84o, he will lose .0125 of the prize fund on average. This is bad, but I bet not as bad as you thought. On the other hand, even if we assume SB always folds to simplify the calculations, If he calls with 70% (which is pretty close to correct if you are pushing 70%), you lose .02 of the prize fund on average. Almost twice as bad of a mistake! You will in fact lose more than this because SB will have a much tighter range to call you and you will be much worse off when he does. Once everyone has been stealing on the button without resistance for a while, it becomes pretty obvious that everyone is just about pushing any 2. The longer this goes on, the more someone will just decide to make a stand, and you don't want to be holding 95o when that happens. Although they will likely have crap, it will usually be better crap than yours.
I would like to add a question here for Xanadu or any other math wiz. I am still trying to work my way through all the math of Poker. You said that someone "needs 95o to break even ICM wise" can you explain this a little further for a relative newbie. Also, you refer to top 70%. Are you talking about the top 70% of ranked hands?