Playing the shortstack when the blinds are getting high.

[tallstack]

IMO, if there are four players left, you are going to have to play AA and KK however you think you can get the most chips out of your opponents. I wouldn't worry about how that would change your future image. How often do you get a hand that is a huge favorite near the end of the tournament. I would play it however it was most likely to get action. If I had been stealing fairly often then I would likely push and hope for a bigger stack to make a stand against the small stack bully. If I thought that a large raise would scare everyone away, then I would limp or min raise depending on position. If you win a large pot with your monster then people will be more afraid to call your next big bet due to your larger stack size anyways.

Dave S

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
at the $10 level people will prob not try to put you on hands anyways and will just be playing their cards. I think you had too many chips to be pushing all in w/ aa kk. If you had 1500-1900 that is a lot of chips for some else to risk w/ a marginal hand. But since you had been pushing in a lot before it makes since as usually people get fed up and will call with any pockets 2 face cards etc. I would prob play it like you did w/ kings if I had already pushed a lot recently and get a little more tricky w/ the aces.

[/ QUOTE ]

a few days ago. i was the shortstack going all-in, forcing the bigger stacks to call if they had a hand and this one guy got real pissed. he ended up being ousted from the SNG before i did.

[durron597]

Any raise MUST be a push. But against the right kinds of opponents, it can be correct to just call a UTG raise from the BB and then push on any flop (stop-and-go), or against opponents who will fold to miniraises on flops they miss, you can win a lot more pots with nothing if you just call the blind and bet any flop. It always amazes me when I play against these players, but often very weak-tight players will catch cards when someone else doesn't and end up with a lot of chips three handed, which their weak-tight play will make them happy to give to you.

Most of the advice on this forum is structured around the most common situations against competant opponents. But shorthanded is where the rules go out the window and the "optimal" play is not always the best one, because you know your opponent will do something stupid to make your unusual play work out.

The original poster made it sound to me like his opponents were just the sort of people who would lay down to a tiny bet on a flop they missed, which is why I suggested mixing up his play might be the best course of action. Remember, just because you have only 9xBB it doesn't mean you are necessarily desperate - the stacks might be 9xBB, 14xBB and 18xBB; thus even the shortest stack might not be someone a tight player will tangle with even when it is correct to do so.

[SixgunSam]

[ QUOTE ]

The original poster made it sound to me like his opponents were just the sort of people who would lay down to a tiny bet on a flop they missed, which is why I suggested mixing up his play might be the best course of action. Remember, just because you have only 9xBB it doesn't mean you are necessarily desperate - the stacks might be 9xBB, 14xBB and 18xBB; thus even the shortest stack might not be someone a tight player will tangle with even when it is correct to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, in this case it was the opposite. The reason I opted for the sledgehammer approach was because up until the bubble, two of the three other players left I would classify as loose/passive (and several other loose/passive types busted out along the way), the third guy was a good player. Like I said in the orignal post, I had really bad cards for the entire first 3/4 of the game. I'm pretty good about manufacturing chips in these situations by stabbing at pots, but this approach was backfiring because of the loose/passive players who were more than willing to fish and it rarely ever got in a heads-up situation. In these situations, I am typically looking to make something and value bet, but I seemed to miss completely flop after flop. The only thing that secured me a pot was by shoving it all-in the middle from time to time when no one was aggressively betting. I was hesitant to change-up what was working because two of these players were so bad that I thought the best thing I could do against them was to play straight ahead and not try to make a fancy play. When my stack got to the push or fold level in relation to the blinds, my game got even more straight ahead.

I suppose you are right that I could have played the aces to induce action and not given away too much information against typical $10 SnG players, but say I was up against higher caliber players, would that still have been the right play?