SNG bubble with sitter

What is the propper approach to playing when the short stacks are to your left, one is sitting out. The big stack is to your right and is folding everything. Is this a situation to exploit and apply pressure to the remaining short stack, or "help" him by allowing the sitter to blind out?

If the big stack folds, its worth considering raising on your button turn. The order of those small stacks and the one sitting out is critical. If the one sitting is paying the BB when you are in position, raise here. If the sitter is in the BB when the big stack is in position, you might even consider an UTG raise.

I wouldn't bully the active small stack too much. Maybe the two of you could alternate taking the sitters blinds. Worst cast is to make a move that puts you out while the sitter cashes!

Just raise and take down the sitter, "most" of the time the other player(s) will notice this and so on.

One time there was three of us left and the big stack decided to "sit out" me and this other player had smaller stacks. Anyyyyway, we was playing the sitter more than outselves and took his stack. This might sound lame, but I hate people who sit out waiting for others to stack off out and get headsup. The guy whined and came back in saying we was colluding...However this wasn't the case the guy thought we would bust each other and he had his guranteed 2nd place.

We never once typed anything to each other, but both looked at it logically, free chips from a big stack sitter. I'd of sooner got headsup with a guy willing to play than some idiot waiting for someone to bust.

Anyway he ended up going out in third place after all and said he was emailing support. We did nothing wrong.

Of course there are times when a short stacked player decides to sit out and you're mid/chip leader against another bigger stack and they don't understand the logic in getting the sitter to bust first so was raising me. When this happened I'd either fold or push.

In this case the active small stack and the big stack were encouraging me to fold and blind the sitter out.
I guess my thoughts were steal what I could to better my position heads up with the big stack. (passive v. aggressive) I'd rather take the aggressive approach.

If there is two guys who are short, and one of them is sitting out, you just hit the jackpot, shove shove, then shove again.

^^^^ This is what me thinks. +1

+2 most people will stay passive just to cash and when the stter is out will be left with a megre stack, I love these situations.

Shove even to the big stack or do you let him keep his blinds?

I would think just shove to the small two and even then, only when you have a feel for the active small stack and you are POSITIVE the sitter will not jump back in and pop you for a significant loss of your stack.

no, not into the big stack, he's the guy we want to avoid, we can however pick on the smaller guys.

When the big stack folds, you should mini-raise everytime if the small guy is the only guy left on the left, if there is somebody in between you and the small and he is also small, you should still be aggressive but if he defends, they it depends on what your holding. Likely the defender has a big hand though.

engman said:

When the big stack folds, you should mini-raise everytime if the small guy is the only guy left on the left, if there is somebody in between you and the small and he is also small, you should still be aggressive but if he defends, they it depends on what your holding. Likely the defender has a big hand though.

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Much better to shove! If shorty wants to play that bad make them pay full price. This is if you have big stack, players left to act are shorter, and sitter is way short. Push ATC and if you get called and lose you will still have enough chips to make it ITM. When you get called and win then that is okay too!

Min raise most of the time looks weak. I squeak one in here and there but they look strong when I do it . Rarely Min raise too, more like 2.25 minimum.

in my opinion you have to push often the players on your left but not when the chip leader is in the hand...play versus the chipleader only when you have realy good hands!

pol_92121 said:

in my opinion you have to push often the players on your left but not when the chip leader is in the hand...play versus the chipleader only when you have realy good hands!

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The problem with this is that most sng players at the lower levels are idiots and will call you if they have the stack at some point, especially if you have been pushing alot.

I'd advocate aggression in this spot but if you get re-raised give it some credit if they've been foldin relentlessly... I actually got in a similar spot yesterday, sat down in a freeroll about an hour into the tournament and had been blinded off to about 1/3 my stack. Turns out there were 6 people at the table sitting out so the other guys went crazy on us. Once I sat down and starting raising everyone tightened right up and I was free to take as I pleased