Too tight around the bubble?

[xtravistx]

$20+2 Sitngo at party, 4 left. Blinds are 100/200. Stacks are me and big stack, both with around 2500, other two stacks around 1200.
I try a small steal raise (500) twice in a row with KJ suited and A10 suited both against the small stacks only to find the big stack pushing me all in both times. Both times I fold (was this play bad?) and end up short chipped.
So a few hands later, I have 1300, short stack has 1200, he pushes all in, I hold QQ.. call and of course he turns over KK and I'm out on the bubble.

My question is, should I have not attempted the steals earlier, raised bigger, not folded to the reraise all in? Was the QQ call a bad idea (assuming the other 2 stacks would fold, which they did).

Thanks in advance.

[MicroBob]

difficult to say. but you may suspect he is bluffing back at you with nothing because he thinks you are trying to steal.
but since you still had 1200 left you didn't leave yourself in too terrible shape and then your QQ got unlucky. it happens.
i would probably fold those also (assuming his all-in put you all-in too) but, then again, my SNG record lately has been rather sucky.

[Senor Choppy]

If your opponent is smart, I prefer raising all-in preflop because he's going to be as scared as you are of losing all his chips to a big stack unnecessarily and going out 4th. Usually, whoever moves in first gets to steal the blinds in this situation.

If your opponent isn't so smart, then I prefer a smaller raise, 2x to 4x the bb, although I usually just stick to 3x. This gives your opponent the ability to move in on you at will and force you to fold all sorts of good hands, but this is assuming your opponent doesn't take this sort of thing into consideration.

I'd rather take the chance of the other big stack waking up to kk or aa once then taking the chance of him trying a resteal because he knows I'm too smart to call him in this spot.

I think given what happened, folding the KJ hand was a no brainer, and probably the ATs hand unless you knew this guy thought reraising you here was 800 free chips.

[ThaSaltCracka]

are you trying to steal from the big stack?
if so he is just pushing you around. I wouldn't try to steal from him anyways on the bubble. You should be trying to take the small stacks chips, as they are likely to be playing super tight right now. You shouldn't rish yopur chips against the big stack at all.
also I wouldn't try to steal twice in a row, especially since it didn't work the time before. Stealing is much more about posistion and bet, then about what cards you are holding.

check out this thread for some help with steals.
chris browns theory