What if everyone on the bubble is playing *gasp* ..correctly?

I've noticed that from time to time, as if by magic, there are four by all appearances players that know how to play on the bubble, on the bubble. This results in more or less every single blind you have being raised, and i'm wondering how much that should change play... like how much do you widen your calling standards?

[bennies]

don't widen your calling standards, widen your pushing.

[raptor517]

ive played 10s of thousands of sngs, and never in my life have i found 4 players together that all play the bubble perfectly by icm. not once. ever. at least one of them will make an incorrect call at some point. dont let it bet you. holla

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ive played 10s of thousands of sngs, and never in my life have i found 4 players together that all play the bubble perfectly by icm. not once. ever. at least one of them will make an incorrect call at some point. dont let it bet you. holla

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. The fact that they're all pushing or folding does not mean that they are playing 'correctly'. They can still be making -EV plays.

Some people say they play the bubble (almost) perfectly (raptor among others), but do you know how hard that is? I sometimes mess with SNGPT and try to figure out exactly what hands you can push in what situations, but there are *SO* many situations. First of all, and most importantly, the call ranges of opponents have a huge influence on your push range. Every player has a different call range (and you can never know it exactly). Besides that the distribution of chips is also very important, and your hand. You can make so many combinations of these three things that there are millions of different situations. It's hard to know which hands to push exactly. Also, T3o might be worse than 65s (don't know if this is correct, just an example), while that can be counter intuitive.

Of course, there's a logic behind it all. If you know you can push hand XY in one situation, you also know you can push it in many other situations. But still, perfect bubble play is not as easy as some people think it is.

I hope I made sense.

[raptor517]

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But still, perfect bubble play is not as easy as some people think it is.

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who thinks its easy? its probably one of the most difficult concepts in poker theory. period. it takes a ton of intuition and experience. you cant just teach it.

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Of course, there's a logic behind it all. If you know you can push hand XY in one situation, you also know you can push it in many other situations.

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you just organized 2 of the best sentences in the history of the stt forum. THIS is the key to perfect bubble play. logic. holla

This kind of got off track, didn't mean to start a conversation about if perfect play is possible or not, but let's face it, sometimes everyone appears to have a significant grasp of what you should do on the bubble compared to average, and it seems the only chance you ever get to push is your once per round UTG, and you always have about a 4 high....

[roundest]

[ QUOTE ]
This kind of got off track, didn't mean to start a conversation about if perfect play is possible or not, but let's face it, sometimes everyone appears to have a significant grasp of what you should do on the bubble compared to average, and it seems the only chance you ever get to push is your once per round UTG, and you always have about a 4 high....

[/ QUOTE ]

The only possible way for everyone to be playing 100% perfect on the bubble is for everyone to have everyone else's ranges down 100% and that will never happen.

All you can do is attempt to pinpoint their calling/pushing ranges and then play accordingly. There is no stock answer. You don't loosen up or tighten up arbitrarily. You do it according to the ranges of your opponents.

Do your best to make every single decision the correct one. Like raptor said, don't be the guy to make a mistake. That's all you can do.

[The once and future king]

Spitecall+suckout=problem solved.