SNG Bubble - who likes my play?

[Cleveland Guy]

Stacks (approx, except for Button)

UTG - $5,300
BUtton - $315
Hero (SB) - $6,800
BB -$2600

Blinds are 150/300

hero is dealt K 8 6 3 - Rainbow

UTG Folds, Button bets all in (315), Hero Calls.


Is calling good here? is raising to isolate better - or too obvious?

[Nick709]

Calling is the best play by far, raising gets you heads up and most likely increases the chances of the short stack tripling up, I routinely make these plays in O8 SNG's.

[Cleveland Guy]

The point of this move is to hopefully help keep the short stack alive.

Ideally I'd like a split with him with my random hand - but I'm not so concerned about him tripling up.

[gergery]

I raise here 80-100% of the time.

I agree the ideal scenario on a typical table is to get heads up with short stack and split, so the other stacks stay tight on the bubble and let you steal some more. Next best is heads up and win the hand to knock him out. If BB is good or loose and will call with a wide range (as he should), then calling is best. But much more likely is that he is typical and wants to let you knock out shortstack, so I raise. Calling and letting BB see a flop also opens you up to having him bluff-steal.

--Greg

[Cleveland Guy]

[ QUOTE ]
I raise here 80-100% of the time.

I agree the ideal scenario on a typical table is to get heads up with short stack and split, so the other stacks stay tight on the bubble and let you steal some more. Next best is heads up and win the hand to knock him out. If BB is good or loose and will call with a wide range (as he should), then calling is best. But much more likely is that he is typical and wants to let you knock out shortstack, so I raise. Calling and letting BB see a flop also opens you up to having him bluff-steal.

--Greg

[/ QUOTE ]

If he as the #3 stack wants to Bluff steal against the short stack into a dead pot - he is more than welcome to it. It will let me know a lot about him right there and then.

Other than that I agree - that maybe I should have raised here.

[gergery]

To clarify, I don’t mean pure bluff steal.

But there are many situations where if you call and he checks and you see a flop, none of you have strong hands and pot equity might be:

Button 35%
You 25%
BB 40%

If he bets and you fold, pot equity might go to
Button 45%
BB 55%

Then it’s a question of weighted scenario calculations: Does the extra ChipEV, when it gets translated into his % chance of getting a given placing (which translated to $EV), make it worth it to raise? AleoMagus had some nice posts on this in the SNG forum a few months back.

You could think of it more like a promo raise – an example might be: he bets his 2457 on a 26Q flop and you fold the best hand K863.

--Greg