Theory Question: Doubling up vs busting near the bubble in 180man SNG

[Hercules]

Hi,
i am not a big multireg, but playing them with some success for the last weeks.
Anyway, the last tourneys i played i was almost always in this kind of spot and would like to hear other opinions:

Ok, lets say there are 21 people left in a 20$ 180 man SNG. You have ~8500 chips with BB 600, which is not wealthy, but it should be possible to cruise ITM.
The big chipleader (say 40.000) on the table is playing his stack and pushing here effectively 17 BB sometimes.

Lets assume he does that with a pair and sometimes with a weak ace.
We pick up AJ on the BT, he pushes from the CO. Do we call?

Lets say we somehow know that we are exactly 50% vs his range (pairs and very rare weak aces), do you rather double up and increase your chance to win the big thing, or do you rather cruise ITM ?

Pls also take into consideration that we (at least we think...lol) are (on of) the best player at the table. So gaining chips gives us the ability to outplay people instead of push/folding with our baby stack...

[ItalianFX]

Alot of people will probably say, Play To Win.

I'd rather call here with a PP because if he has anything other than a PP, he is the one who has to catch up. If we call and he has a PP, we're probably toast.

[Sherman]

If I knew I was exactly 50/50, I'd take it here. 180s, like most MTTs, are very top heavy. Pushbotting w/8K chips for the last two tables probably won't get you deep in the money very often. Doubling here has a much better chance to do so.

BTW - Why is the CL w/40K shoving from the CO with blinds at 300/600? I would stick with more standard raises and only shove if the 3 stacks behind me were quite short (say 3K if I have a weak hand and 6K if I have a moderate that I was going to call a shove with anyway).

If there is a decent stack somewhere in there I certainly am not risking 10K+ of my 40K stack to be pick up ~1K in chips.

[DerrtySlime]

ya, chipleaders dont push all in even on the bubble with players having 8500 chips or more here unless maybe SB to BB.

But you put forward a pretty good question. There's these big stack types who are super crazy on the bubble and raise sooo much because they know it is the bubble and players won't be playing back often enough. This is where i say F ITM and gamble with AJ,88+. your often a 60/40 or a 70/30 favourite for a double up which is A GREAT GAMBLE to take if you want to make the final table with a lot of chips.

[Hercules]

Thx for responses so far. This chipleader was not that crazy, but i had a pretty good read on his play and i knew he`d likely do this with a medium pair (not wanting to play postflop).
Lets see some more answers...


Shermn, people are dumb and push to big of a stack. Most of the time its a hand like 44, which seems to good to fold, but to bad to play with it.

[TwistedEcho]

I'll take a flip here, if that was the Q