Bubble Punishment

md261 on 21st August

Stack Sizes matter:

PokerStars Game $72+$6 - Level VIII (200/400)
Seat 3: Hero(4680 in chips)
Seat 4: player4(1445 in chips)
Seat 6: Villain(2875 in chips)
Hero: posts the ante 25
player4: posts the ante 25
Villain: posts the ante 25
Hero: posts small blind 200
player4: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ah Js]
Villain: raises 1200 to 1600
Hero: calls 1400
player4: folds
*** FLOP *** [3s 9s 2d]
Hero: bets 3055 and is all-in
Villain: folds
Uncalled bet (3055) returned to Hero
Hero collected 3675 from pot

It's the bubble, the Hero is the Big stack, and the blinds are high. No 2 opponents have more than 8 Big Blinds, so it should be push/fold time. The Villain raises an amount which appears to commit him to the hand - AJo is a good enough hand for the Hero to call him all in, and most people would just ship it in and rely almost exclusively on the strength of their hand, and hope to squeeze a tiny bit of preflop fold equity (hoping the Villain is foolish enough to only look at the ICM situation, and ignore the astronomical pot odds he is being offered), and could maybe fold.

AJ is easily good enough to get it all in pre flop here, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to play it. By just calling pre-flop, the Hero makes the pot substantial, but also leaves the Villain and the other opponent with 1000 chips each. When the Hero goes all in on the flop, the Villain may well be facing a tricky decision with high cards or suited connectors, having missed the flop, clearly being behind, but still having as much equity in the SnG as the other opponent, and may decide to fold.

Thus the Hero has made it much easier for the Villain to fold, increasing the fold equity, and leaving himself with 2 cripple stacks on the bubble...Perfect for some bubble brutalisation. This move only really works because although the Villain is cripple stacked if he folds on the flop, he still has as many chips as the third opponent on the bubble. If the third opponent had more chips, this move would be inadvisable.

md261