Stars $22 FO, final table bubble push

[A10Chief]

There's 11 left out of 432, and the smallest stack is sitting out, effectively making this the FT bubble. I am seventh out of 11 in chips, and could probably fold my way into the FT if I wanted to. However, the difference in payout b/w 1st and 9th is incredibly big (usually is), so I don't want to just limp into the final table crippled. Can't say for sure what the other players think my image is, but I have been playing tight. I have made a few raises during the last few orbits, which have been uncontested steals, but every pot has been raised, so it's definitely nothing out of line. I open-pushed here. Villain had stolen about three times in the last orbit, but hadn't show a propensity to call raises or defend his blinds. What do you think of this open push?
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t4000 (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Button (t78760)
SB (t20492)
BB (t46238)
Hero (t57507)
MP (t57020)
CO (t34989)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, T.
Hero raises to t57307, 4 folds, BB calls t42038 (All-In).

Flop: (t100345) 2, A, 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t100345) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t100345) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t100345

BTW, I am a SnG player who is making the switch over to MTTs, so I am still new to big field strategy.

[fjuanl]

your only going to get called here when your way behind. Because its 6 handed I think raising to 10k here would be ok. if the BB comes over the top i think its safe to fold. if this were 9 handed I would fold preflop

[chardrian]

It's effectively 5 handed. ATs is a big hand 5 handed. What I don't like is the push. I know some people say that when your M is below 10 you need to start doing this. I am telling you they are wrong. As long as you maintain 6x the BB you are fine. In other words it is only when you have between 6-10x the BB that you should be open pushing. Once you start getting upwards of 12x the BB (especially this late in a tourney where people are even tighter) I advocate the 2.5-3x BB raise. You are still going to steal more often than not, and you are not putting your tourney life at stake unneccessarily.

I like a raise to 12k there much more than the push.

[WildBobAA]

Agree w/ chard.

[jdubs]

It's effectively 5 handed. ATs is a big hand 5 handed. What I don't like is the push. I know some people say that when your M is below 10 you need to start doing this. I am telling you they are wrong. As long as you maintain 6x the BB you are fine. In other words it is only when you have between 6-10x the BB that you should be open pushing. Once you start getting upwards of 12x the BB (especially this late in a tourney where people are even tighter) I advocate the 2.5-3x BB raise. You are still going to steal more often than not, and you are not putting your tourney life at stake unneccessarily.

I like a raise to 12k there much more than the push.

This is very interesting to me..I would want to push this too, but you are right chard, at this point in a tourney, the 2.5 - 3 bb raise is often quite effective, I have found. especially given the hero's position here, I totally see your case for a 2.5xBB raise...

[A10Chief]

Yes I see why raising to 12k here is much better. I could have folded to the raise or push and probably final tabled this event. Instead I ran into AK and tossed and turned for an hour rethinking this move. I think this was a valuable lesson for me. I hope others read this thread and learn something from it.

[DaNutsInYoEye]

57K with blinds at 2K/4K is no where near crippled.

[A10Chief]

No, but if I were to try to fold my way to the FT, I would have possibly ended up crippled. It would have taken three more orbits for the short-stack (sitting out) to be blinded out. In that time, I would've lost a good percentage of my stack. I was just saying that I wasn't going to sit back at this point in the tournament.

[zenbitz]

I am beginning to think that hardest stack size to play is between M=7 and 10.

A 3x raise with M=10 that gets called sees the flop with a pot of 4.5-5M and you have 8 Ms behind. So, you are going to have to push/fold the flop (I cannot see putting 1/2 your remaning stack in, and folding getting 4:1)

I wonder if it makes sense to have 2 kinda hands, push hands and raise hands? AT is clearly a raise hands, because so many hands that play back at you crush you. Ditto lower pairs. But you can't just push great hands (AQ/TT+) and raise the rest... or can you?

I wonder if there is some point where you should try to change the parameters of the game? Specificlaly - play limit HE with M 7->10.

Min raise pre-flop., min bet the flop. ... This probably only works if the first time you get action you have a monster.

Maybe I will try this sometime at those tricky mid-stack levels. Oh, and just to stave off automatic criticism, this is trivially easy to beat - IF YOU KNOW that's what I'm doing. Oh, and don't do this to agressive opponents unless you are trapping...

[mcatdog]

I am beginning to think that hardest stack size to play is between M=7 and 10.

For me this is true without a doubt. When your M is 5, there will be a ton of situations where pushing has a positive expectation. And when you have a big stack, a lot of hands have a positive expectation if you just make a standard raise. But when you're in the "orange zone," even with pretty good hands (like this one) often times I don't know what to do with them so I just fold them.

For this reason I'll often take big risks just to stay out of the orange zone. For example the QJ all-in call that I posted a week ago that everyone bashed me for.