Interesting minraise strategy bubble situation

[zachaser]

Blinds had gotten ridiculous on the bubble, 600/1200 in an 18 man Tournament. This hand the BB was pretty much AI, and bigstack was a good player; I wanted to isolate BB but be able to fold if bigstack shoved and BB called to get away cheap as possible. Normally I would just shove this hand, but I thought a minraise could be useful here, considering it's the bubble. Check it out:

-----Hand 15-----
Heros M = 3.28
PokerStars Game #10752913902: Tournament #54493147, $1.50+$0.25 Holdem No Limit - Level XI (600/1200) - 2007/07/03 - 18:54:18 (ET)
Condensed history provided by the Tournament Trimmer (v1.1.2w) from http://www.FlopTurnRiver.com
Table 54493147 2 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 2: GetmonyD (1490 in chips)
Seat 4: lason67 (2055 in chips)
Seat 5: Hero (7135 in chips)
Seat 7: wallyarg (4995 in chips)
Seat 8: teeaakaoos (11325 in chips)
All players post the ante 75
teeaakaoos: posts small blind 600
GetmonyD: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [6s 6h]
lason67: folds
Hero: raises 1200 to 2400
wallyarg: folds
teeaakaoos: raises 1200 to 3600
GetmonyD: calls 215 and is all-in
Hero: folds

[bjsaust]

Hmm, I cant remember which one it was, but I posted a tourney a week or two back where I did the exact same play (although I was ITM 3-handed at the time). The idea is that they interpret it as 'no worries, I got this one', however the risk is they interpret it as weakness.

It worked in my case, not in yours .

Strange move from the big stack. You're the only one who can really hurt him, and he sticks in a min-raise? I take your option and fold, that screams trouble.

[dsaxton]

Eh, you're pretty short-stacked. I think you should just push for isolation given your stack size, but your thinking is not totally mistaken. If you had a much larger stack, minraising would probably be the best play.

[bjsaust]

Errm, hero has 7000+ chips making him comfortably the 2nd biggest stack.

[rubixstreub]

I think Big stack had the exact same idea you did. Push or fold here. I vote fold.

[dsaxton]

Errm, hero has 7000+ chips making him comfortably the 2nd biggest stack.

He also has 6 big blinds. The size of his stack relative to his opponents is not the only variable that matters.

[bjsaust]

Hmm, good point.

Without running numbers I think this is a push then. If your read on BB is good, then I assume that means tight enough to make this +EV.

Tough spot, I've never seen blinds that high 5 handed. You're probably good for ITM, but if either shortstack gets lucky and doubles up theres no guarantee.

[edit]Ran this hand through SngPT because it looked so interesting. I cant come up with any combination that makes this anything other than a highly +EV push.

[zachaser]

Like I said, I'd usually just shove this, but I thought it would be better to try to isolate BB in this situation or let big stack do it. Not being results oriented, but bigstack showed up with AQ and hit his two pair to burst the bubble.

[taipan168]

Normally I would just shove this but given it's the bubble and the fact that the BB is pretty much AI this hand, I actually quite like this play. Given it's the bubble, big stack would be an idiot to re-raise you with air since you pretty much have to have a strong hand to even play this and the BB is AI this hand.

[edit]Ran this hand through SngPT because it looked so interesting. I cant come up with any combination that makes this anything other than a highly +EV push.

Did you change the payout structure? SNGPT's standard payout structure assumes the standard 50/30/20 3-place payout so if you didn't change it (and I'm not even sure they have a 2-table SNG structure) it would not be taking into account the fact that this is the bubble.

[bjsaust]

No I didnt. I checked and I cant make it do that. I took the poor mans approach and just ignored the player UTG. I know that changes things, but we're still talking EV ranges from +5% to +10%, thats enormous.