literal dead money cashing in on a sng

[MadSci]

I just played an amusing sng (party, $11). With 5 players left, a small stack went all in, called by another short stack. The largest stack, about 3500, had min-raised utg. (he had been wildly aggressive up to that point) He picked that exact point to get disconnected. One of the short stacks won, eliminating the other.

From that point on, I seemed to be the only player who wanted to steal blinds, even with the incentive of the ungarded blinds. I got to the majority of the chips over a longish grind, and eventually took 1st. The funny part: THE DISCONNECTED GUY TOOK 3RD! It wasn't through a quick confrontation, either, the player to the disconnects left simply got ground down, despite the extra chips released into the pots.

It should be said that I had the advantage of sitting on the right of the disconnected player, but time after time I was left alone with him.