Small pp vs. shortstack shove near bubble

[Styrofoam]

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00+$0.40 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 50 Ante (7 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

(a few more things: We were 2 away from the money, and villain while shortstacked, still hadn't played a hand in over 2 rotations, and i'm the 2nd bigstack in the entire tournament)

UTG (t9560)
MP1 (t3963)
MP2 (t15485)
CO (t8118)
Hero (Button) (t24906)
SB (t8785)
BB (t15842)

Hero's M: 26.22

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6

, 6

1 fold, MP1 raises to t3913 (All-In), 2 folds

Total pot: t1350


Hero???

I won't say what I did, but who calls? who folds? does anyone push to isolate?

 

[Jillychemung]

Fold preflop. The best you will have here is being ahead of 2 overs. If you do decide to play you have to shove to isolate and you do not want to have a multiway pot with your small pair.

 

[OzExorcist]

I probably call this, though table dynamics play a big part in the decision.

Typically when I'm one of the chip leaders near the bubble, I'm usually happy for the bubble to continue as long as there's enough timid players at the table that we can steal blinds and pots with relative impunity.

From that point of view, it's not the end of the world if we double the short stack up. We turn him from a short stack who wants to take some shots and in general mess with the table dynamic, to a medium stack who's probably going to go straight back into conservative mode and try to fold his way to the money.

So if we call and win... we take his chips and move one step closer to the money. Good outcome. If we call and lose, we're still chip leading the table and we turn a somewhat difficult short stack into a (hopefully) docile medium stack, whose blinds and antes we can continue to steal. That's not too bad an outcome either.

This assumes we're an effective bully who's accumulating chips on the bubble though - if that's not the case... I dunno, it becomes a pretty close decision. I might still call and take a shot at eliminating the villain, or I might fold and let someone else do the dirty work.

Oh - reads on the blinds are relevant here too. Jilly has a point, you want to be heads up against the short stack but you don't want to run the risk of being crippled if you shove and one of the blinds calls too. I'm assuming above that the blinds are most likely to get out of the way (based on their chip positions, they'd probably have to have monsters to get involved) if we just flat call. If that's not the case... rethink, and probably err on the side of folding.

 

[soonerdel]

u have total contol of the table when the action gets to you. his range has to be huge here because the blinds are hitting him next hand. i see no problem with shoving here to isolate him. if u lose you still have 21000 chips and havent really hurt your stack. if you win you have added appox. 4K chips to your stack or about 20%. i would shove to isolate and not be surprised to see any A or any two broadway cards.

 

[Styrofoam]

I ended up folding this hand and he picked up the pot when it folded around to everyone else. I commented that i thought my small pp had him beat and he said it was a coinflip. The biggest factor in my deciding to fold was his range was huge at this point, and i had people behind me. If they called my all-in i'm risking far more chips with a marginal hand against what someone calling my allin would have.

I ask because i see people in the MTTs or even ST SNGs, risk their entire tournament on a small PP usually 33-66 like they are aces. And even claim they are a favorite to win the hand with 3 or 4 callers, even if they're the only pair out there...when they are NOT a favorite to win... this is good for me, though, as if they're pushing with small pockets, they're likely going to get busted on the bubble.