Bubble Play in Top Two Pay Satellites – A Comprehensive Guide (Part One)

FROM THE SB
Play from the SB is a bit more complicated, as you’ll be facing a decision of either calling a shove from the button or shoving on the BB. You’ll also have to adjust for the fact that the BB is generally going to give far less respect to a SB raise than a button raise and (further muddying the waters) account for the fact that the calling range of the BB can vary wildly from player to player. Try to nail down the calling range of the BB as quickly as you can, and be sure to take notes on this aspect of player’s games, as it’s one of the ranges that’s most important to get right and also one of the ranges it’s easiest to get terribly wrong. We’ll deal with calling / iso-raising the button first and then raising the BB.

CALLING / ISO
Note that SNGW doesn’t do much to articulate the value of you calling a small stack shove from the button, rather than iso-raising, in the hopes that the BB will call as well and check the hand down, giving you a better chance of knocking out the button. Deciding to call rather than raise is a bit of a tricky decision – on one hand, you don’t want to let the button gain even more chips if they win by letting the BB come in; on the other, it’s less likely the button will prevail against two hands as opposed to one.

It’s our opinion that calling is generally superior to iso-raising, especially under the following conditions: a weaker hand on your part, a shorter stack shoving from the button, and deeper stacks from you and the BB. So, the ideal scenario for calling: You hold a weaker hand, both you and the BB are deep stacked and the button is very short stacked. The ideal scenario for iso-raising: You hold a strong hand, you or the BB has a medium sized-stack and the button has a small but not crippled stack. We’ve marked scenarios below where we think you should strongly consider a call instead of an iso-raise with a *.

Very Loose (70-100%)
This range is usually only employed when the button has a crippled stack and you have chips to spare. Since the button is shoving everything and tripling them up won’t really present a threat to you, you should call and assume the BB will also call and check the hand down.

Other than that, you should only be calling this loose when you are crippled (under 2BBs) and in distant third, as the chips added to the pot make the gamble worth taking. Your only problem is that the button is unlikely to enter the pot too weakly when you’re crippled, as they don’t have any reason to gamble, so you’ll be up against a stronger range than usual. If you have more than 2BBs, you can often fold to the button raise and wait for another hand.

Loose (40-70%)
You can often justify calling with this range when the above conditions aren’t met, but come close. A short stacked button (sub 3BBs) along with relatively deep stacks on the part of both you and the BB is generally a recipe for calling with a fairly wide range. When you’re crippled, a slightly better hand can also justify a call, whereas a garbage hand can be a fold. Some sample scenarios:

Call 40% when button is sub 2BBs, you have 13BBs and BB has 7BBs*
Call 45% with 2BBs when both button and BB are deep

Aggressive (20-40%)
Here we’re again just moving a bit down on the scale – when the button is a little deeper or when you and the BB are a little shallower, you’ll want to be more selective about what hands you contest the pot with. Some samples from SNGW:

Call / Iso 30% when you have 9BBs, BB has 6BBs and button shoves 1.5BBs*
Call / Iso 25% when you have 12Bbs, BB has 6.5BBs and button shoves for 2.5BB*
Call / Iso 20% when you have 8.5BBs, BB has 10BBs and button shoves for 2.3BBs*

Tight (10%-20%)
You’ll be employing this range when the button is pretty short and you have a strong second or first place stack. Obviously if you’re in third, you’ll want to get out of the way and hope the BB knocks the button out. In 1st or 2nd, however, you have some tough competing needs. On one hand, you don’t want to double a short stack up (or risk elimination yourself) by calling / isolating with a weak hand. On the other hand, you don’t want to let the short stack get into a confrontation with a random hand in the BB that could double them up (and then some) if you hold a hand that performs significantly better than a random hand. Play in this spot requires a good amount of precise judgment regarding the button’s range and a solid understanding of the game dynamics – if the button isn’t picking up chips in other ways (say the BB is pressuring them from the SB frequently or they’re giving you too many walks when they’re in the SB), you might tighten up even more than the following scenarios from SNGW suggest:

Call / Iso 11% if 3.5 BB shove from button and you’re in first with 10BBs
Call / Iso 13% if 3.2 BB shove from button and you’re in close race for 1st with 9BBs
Call / Iso 20% facing 3BB button shove and you 7BB / BB 11BB

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