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

Very Tight (0-10%)
You should generally be playing pretty tight when you’re in a solid 1st and the button and the BB are battling it out for 2nd. Again, it doesn’t really matter to you who wins these confrontations – as long as chips are moving between these two, a confrontation that eliminates or cripples one of them is pretty much inevitable. While the thought of knocking out the button might be appealing, you’re simply not getting paid to gamble with anything but very strong hands in these spots. The same logic applies when the BB is in a solid 3rd place, for a few reasons – one, as long as someone’s putting pressure on the short stack, you’re in good shape. Two, you have to assume that the button, when in 2nd place, simply wouldn’t be risking getting involved with a pretty solid range. Examples:
Call / Iso 9% with 12BBs if button shoves 4BBs and BB has 5.5BBs

RAISING
Raising isn’t the polar opposite of calling / iso-ing, but you’ll find many more opportunities for aggression when you’re getting to open the action in the SB. Again, remember that the below assumes a standard, TAGish opponent; if your opponent is calling very loosely (which solid SNG players will do) from the BB, you should definitely error on the side of being tighter.

Very Loose (70-100%)
Some people are big fans of shoving ATC from the SB under almost any conditions. That’s too aggressive of a strategy, but there are plenty of scenarios where you really need to be opening very wide, as the pot is almost always worth picking up and the BB won’t have much of anything an overwhelming majority of the time.

When you’re short and desperate, you should be shoving everything – unless the button is shorter and more desperate. When you’re in a close battle for 2nd with the BB or when all three of you are more or less tied, you should be opening a ton – especially if the BB is a nit. Finally, when you’re in a distant third (we’ll define this loosely as 2nd place having double your stack), you should also be shoving a majority of hands a majority of the time, but as you have a deeper stack or a tighter battle for 2nd with the button, you should be tightening up a bit. Some sample scenarios from SNGW:

Shove 100% with sub 3BB stack in 3rd even if BB is deep and calling very wide.
Shove 100% when you are distant 3rd with 5BBs even if BB is deep and loose.
Shove 100% when you and BB are even at 10BBs and button is big chip leader
Shove 100% when you have 9BBs, BB has 12BBs and button is big chip leader
Shove 100% when stacks are roughly flat at 5-12BBs and BB is only calling premium hands (top 12% or so)
Shove 71% when you have 5.5BBs, BB has 27BBs, and button has 11BBs

Loose (40-70%)
This range is generally reserved for situations where you have 7-10BB stacks and are in 3rd place. You obviously need to pick up chips, but you’re not so desperate that you need to be shoving ATC and risking a playable stack. The tighter the BB is, the wider you can shove; the closer you are to 2nd place, the tighter you should be. So, distant third + tight BB with these stacks gets you to the 70% end of this range; closer battle for second and loose BB moves you toward the 40% end (or below, in some cases). You’ll also find yourself shoving this range when the stacks are fairly flat and you can apply maximum pressure to the BB. Samples from SNGW:

Shove 63% with 7BBs when button has 15BBs and BB has 44BBs and is calling loose (top 30%)
Shove 62% with 7BBs when button and BB both have similar stacks.
Shove 43% with 7.5BBs when button has 30BBs and BB has 45BBs and is calling loose (top 36%)

Aggressive (20-40%)
You want to tighten up a little bit when you’re in third or a close race for second with a slightly deeper stack, especially against a deeper BB in 1st who is somewhat loose. This is unfortunately a bad dynamic for you (having the leader to your right and your closest opponent chip-wise to your right), but your best bet in that dynamic is to be shoving from your button, which takes chips directly away from your rival and also catches the big stack at the point where they’re likely going to get involved with the tightest range they’ll have out of all three seats. Some examples from SNGW:

Shove 37% if you have 5.5BBs, button has 8.5BBs and BB is deep and very loose (35%)
Shove 33% if you have 7BBs, button has 27BBs and BB is deep and very loose
Shove 25% if you have 7BBs, button has 9BBs and BB is deep and loose

Tight (10%-20%)
Look to be playing this range when you’re in a close battle for 2nd with the button and the BB has both of you well covered. If you’re not finding any other spot to chip up and the opponent you’re battling with is, or if the BB is unusually tight, this is a good spot to loosen up, but under normal game conditions you should be picking spots with some care here. Not too much care – 20% of hands is still a lot of hands – but relatively tight hand selection is still advisable.

You should also be playing this range if you’re in third but have a 10BB+ stack and you’re facing a big stack in the BB. Examples:

Shove 12.5% when you have 12BBs, button has 20BB and BB has 33BBs and is calling fairly loose (20%)
Shove 11% when you have 12BBs, button has 12.5BBs and BB has 19BBs.
Shove 10% when you have 10BBs, button has 11BBs and BB has 40BB+

Very Tight (0-10%)
You’re generally looking to be this tight when the button is in third place and you’re in a solid 1st or 2nd – again, ask yourself: what do I have to gain by getting involved? If the SNG was a winner-take-all, the chips would be valuable, but in a flat payout, accumulating chips just doesn’t have the same utility. The deeper the stacks are, and the greater your lead is, the truer this becomes. This is especially critical if the BB is putting pressure on the short stack – you might as well feed them chips , as more chips will likely increase the chance that they’ll raise the short stack wide when they’re on the short stack’s BB.

Raise 10% when opening 11BB into 13BB with button in third place with 3.5BBs
Raise 9% with 8BBs when BB has 10BBs and button has 3.2BBs
Raise 7% with 8.5 BBs when BB has 20BBs and button has 4.5BBs
Raise 6% with 13Bbs when BB has 12BBs and button has 7BBs.

Play from the BB is covered in Part Two of this article

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