I disagree.
They will either call or shove back at you, so if you feel pot committed your bet size doesn't matter because you're going to call, right? And no villain is going to bluff-raise you back at this point because you look pot committed, so they'll have better than your K/9.
They probably won't bluff raise, but they certainly cannot bluff call if we shove, lol.
My play gives you more options. What if you raise, the SB shoves, and the BB shoves? How do you feel about your hand then? The small raise probably just saved you from bubbling because you can muck your hand.
This described situation happens so infrequently that it's really not even worth thinking about. It's so unlikely BOTH of the large stacks will get it in vs each other.
Folding after the raise isn't terrible when you figure that if you shove and aren't called the very next hand you have about the same amount of chips.
Ok, so we just lose 600 chips, then take a flip and get back to where we started, that's not logical.
I'm serious. I have a pretty good record in the CardsChat team league, which are essentially single table S&G's. I'll post a chart of my finishes for the 4 most recent seasons (a year of seasons vs CC players).
Shameless brag , but seriously, no offence to the CC league players, but it really doesn't play like a "real" SNG, not that i've done very well in the games myself as i usually just play like a retard for fun. it's a sweet graph though .
You want to stay alive, and you want to use every advantage you have. If you think the SB & BB are going to call the small raise most of the time then by all means just shove, but most of the time people with small stacks like that do not. They wait for a good hand to shove back, so bet small and take the money.
Yeah you want to stay alive, but you also don't want to just cripple yourself for no reason. Like here if we raise to 600, yeah we can fold and have 1200 left (or whatever it is), but that doesn't give ourselves any better chance of cashing than before we started the hand right? it gives us less chance. I think you may be basing this play in the CC games, where i'm sure it would actually work quite well. Most of the players are way way way, too tight, give players way way way too much credit, and you probably get a shitload of folds even with that 1200 stack after you fold. In the real world, you don't get as much credit, people will call you loose, becuase they are either good and they know you are shoving wide, or they are bad, and they just don't care.
If they do shove, well, then you have a decision to make. If you make bad decisions then by all means shove pre-flop. If you have a feel for the players, then you are doing yourself a disservice by limiting your decisions by shoving.
Seriously, a lot of the time in this situation I'll decide (before I see any action) that I'm going to make the bet, and fold to the Player#3's shove but call the Player#4's shove, based on what I know about them. Sometimes you know that one particular villain is only going to shove back with Ace/Face and pairs 9/9+, which have you crushed. So I fold to them and start stealing with my remaining 1,200 chips which is better EV (IMO) than calling a tightwad with K/9. Even if you get called while stealing, you're often only a 40:60 dog.
Ahah, we're usually around that when we're called if we shove pre-flop too, right? I mean, it may be a little less than a 40/60 maybe a 30/70 or whatever, but it's still not horrible.
1,200 is still (barely) enough to hurt people at that point, so I'm not afraid to have those chips (considering the stack sizes to my left)