Bubble play

[silvershade]

Hi, I've been playing poker for around 6 weeks now, until yesterday this was purely limit ring games in which I'm doing pretty well, these will remain my main focus but I really want to add some tournament play in to mix things up a little for when I just dont fancy a grind.

Yesterday I decided to play some SnG's and I started over at Party playing $10+1. I played 4 tournaments adopting a conservative approach for the early rounds ( basically eliminating drawing hands from my game ) and managed top 5 finishes in all of them ( 1st, 5th, 5th, 4th ).

On the occasion that I did make it to the last 3 I didnt find it really hard to play there compared to what went before. My normal aggressive short handed style seemed adequate here and obviously I caught some cards and was able to bust the other 2 out ( to be honest they seemed pretty clueless 2 or 3 handed, letting me pick the fights on my terms all the time ).

My problem is that I have trouble playing when there are 4 or 5 players left and the blinds are rising quickly, in all but one SnG I've entered the last 5 with the 4th or 5th largest stack. With a big stack this seemed not to hard, just stay out of trouble really but with a small stack it was another matter, obviously the blinds start hurting.

What approach do you adopt when trying to reach the top 3 when you are currently lying 4th or 5th, so far I've been attempting to double up by engineering an all-in confrontation when I have a strong hand, this seemed better than getting eaten by the blinds, each time i've ended up busting out though ( though twice I think I was quite unlucky running into pocket AA vs AK and KK vs JJ ). Is this the right stratagy though? Would they even have played back if they werent sitting on monster hands? If not would a strategy of blind stealing perhaps be a better way of surviving? I'm finding this area tricky so far and was wondering if anyone has advice or maybe can link to a guide.

[ripped]

My advise is dont be the 1 calling raises for 1..you be the 1 raising. Blind stealing is everything here and I am usually pretty aggressive unlike most with 4-5 left as most dont want to dance to avoid busting so blind stealing becomes pretty easy unless you run in to a monster. The most important advise is to read this forum. There is thousands of bubble play posts here that you can learn a great deal more from than me sitting here telling you how to play. Also if you have some hand histories dont be scared to post them and get some advise from some of the higher limit pros.

[ThorKGB]

Be super aggressive in your endgame, and shift gear while you still have fold equity.
Fold or push. Fold if someone opens in front of you unless you have a big hand, push when youre first in with pocket pairs, aces and any two cards 10 and higher.

[silvershade]

Hey, guys. Thanks for the advice, it worked a treat and i managed to get into the money in 2 of the 4 SnG's I played today using the more aggressive blind stealing tactics [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img], even managed a second win.

Read a few of the other posts in the forum and I learned a lot already I think, still a ton more to learn but I'm sure I can do that here.