[ilya]

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Interesting thought process here. If you had been running over the table on the bubble as you indicate, I would most likely call the push here as well. If he wins this hand (that he is a 65-35 favorite in), he becomes the dominant chip leader and has a solid chance of taking down first place. If he folds this, then what else must he fold while the small stack is still around? What happens if the small stack makes it through the next orbit? Is this guy suppossed to just passively fold all his hands to your greatness? Not only do I not see this play as "retarded," given the information you provided, I consider it the CORRECT play. Why wait around and HOPE to spinelessly win $4? The push, IMHO, is what is suspect. The only callers you will get are the ones who have u dominated. You should have been down to about 1200 chips here.
Les

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I think this line of thinking has more merit than people generally give it credit for, but in this situation you'd be giving up too big a chunk of immediate $EV by calling with AQo for not enough future +$EV.

It's true that you will be the big stack on the bubble if you win, but you are likely to not even get an opportunity to take advantage of that. The shortie will have to survive the next hand, for one. If he does, your pushes will have to go through him. He will know that your range is likely to be extremely loose, and also that he can't hope to wait out the other stacks. So he will call you liberally. When he loses, your bubble big stack advantage will be over. When he wins, the other players will have similar stacks. None of them will feel like they can wait out the others, loosening them up & forcing you to tighten up.

And even these limited advantages will only be available to you 65% of the time at best.

If you fold, shortie will still have to survive the next hand. If he busts, you will be ITM with a solid stack & a good chance of finishing 2nd or 1st. If he wins the next hand, he will often bust on the one after that. Half his stack will be in the pot after posting the SB, and he won't have much hope of outfolding the others. Even if he plays that hand and wins it, he will still be the short stack. Not insignificantly, the big stack will most likely not be able to fold to him on that second hand.

In short, a TON of things have to go wrong in succession for you to not make the money if you fold here. And when you do make the money, you will often still have enough to make a run.