$26 - 45 sng bubble

[sssick]

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1000 (7 handed)

UTG (t19320)
MP1 (t8200)
MP2 (t4220)
CO Hero (t6280)</font>
Button (t9080)
SB (t7040)
BB (t13360)

Preflop: Hero is CO with T[[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]], K[[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]].

7 players left, top 6 make the money. It's folded to me. Everyone's tight. Push here? What range does the BB need to call?

[deepsquat]

Personallty id push here. Any read on BB?

[sssick]

BB hasn't called anything at the final table, but has raised once or twice each rotation.

[deepsquat]

id be shoving [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[memphis57]

I gather you don't want BB to call you? That you just want to take down the blinds?

It doesn't look to me like stealing the blinds once does a lot for you. If MP2 wins an all-in hand in the next round or so, you'll still be tight with 2 others for next to be blinded out, depending upon whether there are antes and exactly when the blinds go up again.

And to answer your question, I think a normal BB would call you with any pocket pair or any ace - just the hands that would be favored to win against you. I say that because he can survive losing an all-in, although it would hurt him - he would still have a slight chip lead on SB and MP1 (after he takes the blinds) and MP2. But if he wins the all-in, he pulls even with the chip leader, and anyway he probably knows from reading 2+2 that the bubble is time when chip leaders should be building their stacks.

So, the safest thing is to wait and see what happens to MP2, but if you want to be proactive, you might try to get BB to call you with a bad hand. How? Well, think about this - he's the second biggest stack, but the biggest is to his immediate right. Thus, he presumably hasn't been able to do much bullying because he doesn't know what UTG will do. But his BB is the one time that he doesn't face that uncertainty - UTG has already folded. So, what if you raise to 3000, like you want to force him out? He may react by thinking you'll be concerned about the pay bubble and think he can easily force you off your hand by going all-in on you - then you call him.

[hagbard celine]

I don't know if you've played these SNGs, but they play REALLY tight -- in general.

You will find players that will call you at this stage with a lot of aces and pairs. You add 1500 to your stack by stealing, that's a fair percentage of Hero's stack, so stealing is beneficial, and I think in these tournaments open-shoving this shallow fairly light is pretty optimal, as most Villains are calling way too tight.

[levAA]

with 6BBs this is an easy push.

[memphis57]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if you've played these SNGs, but they play REALLY tight -- in general.


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I haven't played these, and in fact my SNG experience is limited to about 50 of the stars 3.25s and a couple hunded smaller buyins. I'm posting here on advice to try to learn something from you guys.

So I'll concede that you're probably right, but let me try to draw you out a little more. First, everybody seems to agree that pushing is the thing to do, and I don't disagree with that. My only question is whether you'd rather be called or not, and if so, whether you can get better results by trying to entice someone else to push first.

I understand a t1500 blind-steal is a major gain at this point. However, it seems likely that the bubble is going to be decided in the next 5-10 hands, very likely in the next 4-5 including this one (4th is shortie's BB). There's a 50-50 to 66-33 chance (I guess) that shortie will go out first. If he doesn't, then there are similar odds the new shortie will go out first, and so on. Yet, I've seen many times where 2-3-4 shorties survive and pass on their ordeal to the next in line.

By my calcs, if hero just steals the blinds once, he only improves to 5th from 6th, leaving him still clearly in the danger zone, and meaning he could still need another good push hand within the next 10 hands. What are the odds of getting that? This could be the best hand he sees for a while.

Also, winning all-in here puts him solidly in 2nd place in chips, greatly improving his chances for a more meaningful cash out. I don't know the prize structure here, but in stars last place in a 45-man tourney (7th) pays 2x buy-in (x fee) with the next places being 3x, 4x and 5x. Thus, I'd estimate the EV of winning all-in here to be something like 3-5x buy-in, with the alternative (try to steal blinds) being worth 55-65% of the bottom prize, or 1.1-1.3x buy-in. Using those numbers, it would seem to pay to go all-in against anything up to QQ, where you only have a 32% chance of winning (using midpoint EVS, 32% times 4 = 1.28, which is &gt; 1.2).

Admittedly, the EV calc for stealing blinds is very complicated, and could be as high as maybe 1.75 x buyin, depending on assumtpions. But so could my 3-5x EV estimate of winning allin be higher, and even if not, using the 1.75 number, it still justifies going against hands up to A9s (43% chance to beat it).

OK, don't spare my feelings, tell me what's wrong with that logic.

[AMT]

anything except shoving is wrong. no ones range is going to open up now with your read.