Cost/benefit of bubble aggression

[wadea]

I'd like to hear people's comments about the relative risk/reward of being hyper-aggressive on the bubble. Obviously, your ITM will probably go down, but your 1st/2nd/3rd ratio should also be biased towards more 1sts and 2nds. Given other players' natural propensities to tighten way up on the bubble, it seems to almost be a no-brainer. Of course, theory and practice are two different things.

Do you guys think that this strategy of sacrificing ITM will net you a higher ROI (in actual play)? Also, excluding microstacks, do you think this type of play is a good idea regardless of your stack size?

Note, I'm talking about 5-handed play with blinds of 50/100 and raising to 3xBB with about half of all hands or more.

-wadea

[Jman28]

Bubble aggression is the key to being a successful SNG player. Your thinking is dead on.

What you have to watch out for is becoming too automatic. Some games are much looser than others, and you have to hold back in those or you cost yourself some serious $EV.

Also, if you've stolen 6 out of the last 8 blinds, slow down if others begin to suspect you play any two.

Remember that in most cases, with a stack less than 10X the BB, a 3XBB raise is incorrect. Push all-in or fold. You have a lot more folding equity this way, and you leave them no chance to steal the pot from you.

-Jman28

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]

Remember that in most cases, with a stack less than 10X the BB, a 3XBB raise is incorrect.


[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree, in some cases... On a tight table, and particularly one where you have been pushing regularly, a 3X raise seems to often have more folding equity. Particularly from EP.

A push can look desperate or be (correctly) interpreted as a steal. A 3X raise looks 'sneaky'. It looks more like you want a call.

This is obviously situation and opponent dependant but it's a good move to keep in your arsenal, IMHO when the blinds are 100/200 a UTG raise of T600 from a good player with a T1000 stack looks very ominous (obviously if the guy's a bad player, it just screams "weak steal" but from good players my calling standards are very high for this kind of raise. Particularly if you've seen him push before, so you know he knows he should be pushing...)

[Mr_J]

"I disagree, in some cases... "

He said 'in most cases', so I'm sure he agrees that there's time to 3xbb raise and not push /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[citanul]

Nice post Jman.

To the original poster, I suggest you sit down with a pencil and paper for a few minutes, and with the following guides in place, make up some numbers:

(these numbers are *slightly* off due to rake implications)

One first place = 2 2nd places
One first place = 1 2nd place and 2 3rd place
One first place = 4 3rd places

1 2nd place = 2 3rd places

Keep in mind of course, that you really shouldn't consider every time that you wind up with a 7:3 chip lead heads up as an "automatic" victory. It will, usually, be much closer to say, 70% of an automatic victory.

My suggestion, work out if you have 13/13/13/61 distributions, a couple of "shapes" you'd accept with lower than 39% ITM such that you're making more money, and a couple that break even maybe, with the even distribution in the beginning of this paragraph. Then post what your conclusions are. I think that alot of people think about this and have problems. Some of these problems I think are rooted in never having seen something like a list of a few distributions and what their payouts are.

Some suggestions?

How about 15/13/9, 16/12/10, 15/14/8, 19/19/0, 19/x/0 where x makes this distribution break even with the 13/13/13 distribution, and some others of your choice.

citanul