Bubble play in 9 man sng's

In 9 man sng's while on the bubble what is the usual hand range when trying to make the money? Lets say I have pocket fives/sixes/sevens with a 2.5k chips stack blinds at 150/300 with 4 players left. The SB and BB stacks are equivalent to mine. Should I push all-in here, raise min, raise 3x? How about if i'm holding ace 8/9/10 in this same position? Whether the players in the blinds are tight, loose, ect. this question is for all situations.

Im a big fan of pushing here, but its situational.

Without any stats or reads on opponents, I would just say ship it. With stacks that small you're either going to get it all in anyways post flop, or get re-shoved on and either get it all in anyways or leave yourself desperately short.

With pretty much all of those hands I'm happily shoving.

No matter what your opponents are like don't even contemplate raising min or 3x because maximising your fold equity to pick up the blinds is probably better than calling your stack off into a flip situation when one of the blinds shoves K8 or something. Raising small pretty much commits you to a call anyway and you'll bleed chips super fast if you plan to raise-fold in this spot.

If the villains are tight then I'm probably shoving a wider range than what you've mentioned there. If they're loose I'm a bit less certain but it's also not that common for a player that makes a lot of loose calls to be in this situation with just an average stack size. Loose shovers are a lot more common than loose callers. I probably eliminate some of the worse hands from my range against a loose caller but the ones mentioned in the OP (pairs, medium aces) should perform well against their range. Someone with SnGWiz might be able to do some figures on exactly how wide you shove against a loose caller.

OzExorcist said:

With pretty much all of those hands I'm happily shoving.

No matter what your opponents are like don't even contemplate raising min or 3x because maximising your fold equity to pick up the blinds is probably better than calling your stack off into a flip situation when one of the blinds shoves K8 or something. Raising small pretty much commits you to a call anyway and you'll bleed chips super fast if you plan to raise-fold in this spot.

If the villains are tight then I'm probably shoving a wider range than what you've mentioned there. If they're loose I'm a bit less certain but it's also not that common for a player that makes a lot of loose calls to be in this situation with just an average stack size. Loose shovers are a lot more common than loose callers. I probably eliminate some of the worse hands from my range against a loose caller but the ones mentioned in the OP (pairs, medium aces) should perform well against their range. Someone with SnGWiz might be able to do some figures on exactly how wide you shove against a loose caller.

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For sure. I was just giving baseline ranges. Depending on opponents tendencies I will (and most should) widen or tighten as necessary.

I've done a few calcs on this when I had SnGWiz (need to re-load and purchase now), and I found that these ranges are overall proper against most player types. If I remember correctly you should tighten up to the top 50% of said range against a failry loose caller, but no more than that as it means you will have fewer spots you are able to be shoving.

Below 10BB, you might consider pushing than raising 3BB. If you raise 3BB and got push with a reraise, what will you do? Will you fold or call? I prefer to put all the pressure on the opponent rather than having the pressure coming back to me.

Concerning your hands, if first in, I would consider a push for me with the hand ranges described. One thing though, I might adjust depending on the opponent.

Could you see yourself folding these smallish pairs if you were first to act? With four people left you are always either the CO, BTN or in the blinds. I would be ok open folding this. If I am btn and there is a raise from the first to act I can also easily fold this. I might consider min raising for a set mining only. Seems like a waste of two BBs to me though. Ship or fold comes to mind most often

Am I crazy to fold even small PPs here?

I would always shove, if I were first to act.
Also as a guidline you can use the 20% rule aswell

Im shoving.

Kmixer: I dunno, I kind of agree if your raised to fold small PP;s,

kmixer said:

Could you see yourself folding these smallish pairs if you were first to act? With four people left you are always either the CO, BTN or in the blinds. I would be ok open folding this. If I am btn and there is a raise from the first to act I can also easily fold this. I might consider min raising for a set mining only. Seems like a waste of two BBs to me though. Ship or fold comes to mind most often

Am I crazy to fold even small PPs here?

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Again, it would depend on opponents, but in most cases I would advocate folding 22-77 first to act. I could also argue for certain scenarios where min-raising 55-99 early, looking to steal/setmine if called. usually when you're this short handed raising these small pairs will put you into a heads up with one of the blinds, which would be ideal. I should also add that a minraise at this point usually looks scary to most recreational players so you could get away with this at times without any confrontation. Button would usually re-pop ya if they had a decent hand. So if you were against the blinds, you open up alot of c-bet any board scenarios where you come out ahead.

On the downside if you were raised or called but whiffed the flop snd your opponent in the blinds led out, you are wasting two bb's. I feel you need a very good read on not only your opponents but a good handle on how they percieve you as well.

Overall, I would still prefer the simpler ship/fold over trying to get fancy with a minraise and opening up a can of worms. And the lower the pp the more I would be comfortable folding.

i would push all in with small pocket pair . ppl play tighter on the bubble , so its a good time to pick up some extra chips i think