[Lurshy]

Mornelth, in my humble opinion, yours is a very clear summary, except that the isolation can be made with way 'less than pure nuts',

I think this also fits into intuitive play that many folks make, and basic positional play. If the shortie is on your left and acting before you, he is in early position. The early position shorty likely opens with a better range of hands than the LP shorty on our right. This is because the early position shorty knows with so many people left to act, someone is more likely to wake up with a real hand (or there are more people with the chance to take a shot heads-up).

So naturally we are inclined to let shorties on our left battle with other stacks to our right - as that stage is set before the action gets to us. Similarly, we are more likely to isolate the shorty on our right, because of opportunity and lower risk (fewer people to act after us).

If you accept that because the opporunities to isolate shorties often get set-up because of position (you have more opportunity to isolate shorties to your right), the question then really becomes and I think this is the essence of the dilema - what range of hands do you isolate with? If I interpret correctly, Gigabet is making a case for isolating with a wide range of hands, if the resulting stack sizes with either outcome is ok.

It is ok to eliminate the shorty and take his chips, and it is ok to double up the shorty if you remain in the same chip-level block, and the chips move to your right.

The chips flowing to your right may move that former shorty up a block, but will also put him in a better position to take out shorties to his right (late in tourney you are happy with any elimination). It also leaves you still with positional advantage over those chips, so you have a higher likelyhood to recapture them. If you double up someone to your left, those chips are harder to get back.

- Lurshy