Bubble adjustment against a fishy leader.

[nothumb]

Ok. You are playing a Party SNG, 10 or 20 buy-in. Chip leader (~2500) is a real fish, seriously considering calling a big raise with any face card - J2, K4, whatever. He has called several big ones with exactly these cards.

Blinds are 25/50, about to be 50/100. You have T800 - T1000 and are the short stack (so relatively even stacks). Other players are typical/passive.

Are you more or less likely to push in this situation with big cards, given his willingness to call in a hand where you might dominate him or at worst be a coinflip? Does your range of pushing hands increase when he is the only likely caller?

NT

[nothumb]

Someone must have an opinion! Help please.

[ddubois]

I can only venture a guess: I suspect pairs go up in value (particularly low pairs that could still be above one of his cards), any-two-face goes up in value (more likely to dominate him), and AX goes down in value (AX is not a great favorite over two cards in the middle, the value of pushing it mostly comes from fold equity, and this caller will have two cards in the middle frequently).

[NegativeEV]

There was a great string of posts that started with a Praying Mantis post titled "Folding Equity" yesterday. This string addresses this question nicely. The short story: push requirements go UP and your push frequency goes DOWN when playing against this type of player. Your goal with pushing on the bubble is to take down the blinds without showing down (i.e. maximize folding equity to avoid coin flips). You don't want coin flips on the bubble even when you are a decent favorite (i.e. you don't want 6:4 favorites being shown down as winning two in a row is unlikely). This is why you need to be more careful with bubble aggression at the $11-$33 tourneys than in the high $ tournements. I suggest searching on the Praying Mantis string from yesterday.

[Algasm]

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This is why you need to be more careful with bubble aggression at the $11-$33 tourneys than in the high $ tournements. I suggest searching on the Praying Mantis string from yesterday.

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Over the last 22 or so tourneys at the $33 level I've been implementing the all in or fold strategy and I've been noticing people more than willing to call my all ins with less than premium hands. An example, last night 6 left, I'm UTG+1 I get KQo and I push (maybe I was influenced by reading jason's bubble example post and thought KQ is better than KJ) stacks to my left that I have covered calls all in with Q-10s with 3 other stacks left to act. Button who is the chip leader with ~2200 folds and both blinds fold each has ~1000 after posting.
He hit his flush and crippled me. Is it better to just minraise and push any flop? At least they get the chance to miss? I'm trying to figure out if I will win more by betting on flops vs. just going all in PF. Going all in preflop hasn't been working out.
Maybe I need to be better in selecting who to steal from. Normally I look to see if they fold in the SB earlier in a tourney or later for that matter. I like to see a willingness to fold.
Also I've been noticing the occasional LAG seems to have a lot of success by just calling with basically any two and then min betting the flop and taking it down uncontested. Anyone else seeing people still limping at the BB100 and BB200 levels. Would I be better off just popping most flops and taking them down 66% of the time when they don't hit a pair? Just thoughts because I'm frustrated with my current bad streak.