Bubble play Party 11 SnG

stlip · #1 12-05-2005, 08:06 AM

I'm mainly a limit player and I've been struggling for a year to learn NL. I got some great help in this forum about a year ago when I was clueless, but each SnG still feels to me like it takes a Titanic effort to have a shot at finishing ITM. I only play one table at a time and try to read the daylights out of everyone's play.

The good news is that in a bit more than 500 $11 SnG's I'm up close to $400, so I'm clearly a crummy player who can barely handle the pathetic level of play at this buy in, but at least I'm not losing. The other good news is that I hope I'm finally starting to get some of this.

This was play where I think villain made a mistake and not me, but I felt my play was a close decision. Let me know if I'm right about either of those beliefs.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (4 handed) converter

UTG (t1565)
Button (t795)
SB (t4360)
Hero (t1280)

Villain likes to play a bit loose and has seen a lot of flops with limps and min raises. The small stack is so tight that he is bordering on letting himself get blinded out. The big stack (as so often happens) is the worst player at the table.

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
UTG raises to t400, 2 folds, Hero raises all in , UTG calls t880.

UTG holds A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

I pushed even though there was a decent chance to just sit back and finish in the money because I was pretty sure Villain would fold rather than take a risk like this on the bubble. I read the size of his raise to mean that he probably did not have a premium hand and was hoping to just take down the blinds with a hand that would be strong to draw to if he did get called. If he did call my push I felt my pair would still be the favorite against most of the hands in his range, but clearly I was playing for the fold equity more than the coin flip while on the bubble.