[WinBig]

Two hands from the $22 rebuy final table on Stars that MLG played last night. He was the chipleader to start the final table and had been reraising a lot when it was down to 18 players and was successful at getting players to fold preflop and on the flop quite a bit to build his stack.

Hand #1 - Blinds 8000/16000. Folded to MLG in MP with a stack of 526K and he raises to 48000. The four stacks to his left have between 148K and 188K. The raise is the 3xBB standard raise that he would make with a wide range of hands since the medium sized stacks will fold a large number of hands.

SB goes all-in for 188K and MLG calls getting about 1.9 to 1 odds for a call. Assuming the SB has a range of hands here that includes AA-JJ and AK-AJ (is this too small?) what will MLG need to have to call? I would guess it could be a pretty wide range of hands getting those odds.

I guess my real question deals more with what range you raise with since you know you will call any push from the smaller stacks getting decent odds. You are the chipleader and can push around the smaller stacks but do you do this with trash or with decent holdings like AJ and up or 88 and up?

Hand #2 - 8 players left and MLG now has a nice stack of 733K which is almost double what 2nd place has. Blinds still at 8K/16K and MLG is in the BB. UTG with 176K limps and it is folded to MLG who pushes. What range of hands would you push with here? An UTG limp shows some strength so is the range small? Lets say AA-QQ and AK/AQ?

I found these two hands to be interesting because I struggle playing a big stack and saw a lot of aggression at this final table that appeared to border on a maniac style of play. I try to raise more when I get a big stack but I am fearful of doubling up a smaller stack with a marginal holding when maybe I should push the issue and raise preflop and call when getting 2-1 odds. Thoughts?

I'll post the hand results later this evening.