How to combat Harringtons bubble strategy.

[gingerwizard]

Since i can't find my copy ATM it'll have to be a roughly accurate quote from HOH1.

Referring to bubble strategy for online sng

[quote = "HOH1"]Just move in for the minimum raise with any decent holding.[/quote]

Well almost everyone here disagrees with minraising and so do I. But im coming round.
I see people employing this strategy all the time, and, at least at the lower levels, it seems to work. Their stacks increase healthily with minimum risk. (usually they have >=10xBB). I know when im minraised on or near bubble im NEVER calling. They either get my stack in their face or i fold. obv i fold more often than not as i have bad cards more often than not. So their stacks simply rise.

When all most opps should be worrying about is finding shoving spots, why do we need to worry about offering pot odds to call? Any donk short stack calling a minraise is leaking chips and giving you a chance to hit. Any good shorty would shove good cards and you can get away real cheap.

Also who hates harringtons strategy and has a good answer for it?

[rm082e]

My thoughts (for what little they are worth...):

After re-reading the HOH books a few months back, and seeing this topic was way off from everything I've heard everywhere else, I decided to try it. What I found was this: If you are the most aggressive player at the table, and you have a decent to big stack, it can work. But you have to be playing against a group of tight players. I was only able to pull this off at some of the $5 sngs on UB and Absolute.

If your sng contains other decent players who act aggressive (raising 4Xbb or pushing more than once per orbit), then you're just wasting your money. They're just going to push back at you on a regular basis.

As far as defending against this strategy when the big stack starts using it, I push at him with any ace, any decent K, or any PP. This is unless there is some shortie about to go out. If you push back at them a couple of times, they usually change gears.

The only time I can see minraising at the bubble is to lure the super aggressive players into the pot when you hold a AA or KK. Also if the player to your left is super weak/tight, you can use it to steal his blinds cheaply. Other than that, it's standard raise, push, or fold for me.

Food for though: I somehow doubt Dan Harrington has spent allot of time playing 1 table sngs at the $20 limit and below.

[gingerwizard]

well i agree with most of that. I don't usually shove over with any ace or king though. Would need a read to see if i have fold equity.

[taipan168]

I've railed a few high buyin SNGs ($200 and up) and I have seen Harrington's minraise strategy being employed reasonably successfully. I suspect that it's because you've got very observant players who will play as you suggest - either fold or shove over rather than calling.

At lower buyin SNGs where you have players who will call a minraise with marginal hands (but may dump them to a bigger raise) and won't lay down bottom pair to a flop c-bet I wouldn't advocate it.

rm082e makes a good point that a lot of Harrington's advice is geared towards situations where players are paying attention and often doesn't take into account the "donkey factor" so prevalent at low buyins.