Big Stack Position

[teknique]

I've been looking through a lot of my 3rd and 4th place finishes, and noticed a bit of a theme: A lot of the time, when I bust in 3rd or fourth, the big stack is directly on my left through the bubble period. The pic below kinda demonstrates how a lot of my tournament histories look during the bubble, around the 100/200, 100/200/25 and 200/400/25 levels.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00+$0.50 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com



BB (t2450)
UTG (t1710)
Hero (Button) (t2705)
SB (t6635)

Hero's M: 3.86

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10, K

Three very similar size stacks of about 10 BB and one huge stack, and bubble passivity is rife at the $6 level. If the huge stack was on my right, I'd be aggressing with a wide range of hands (almost anything above average) when the big stack has folded infront of me. However, when the big stack is behind me, I find my game tightens up considerably.

If I have 15-20BB's and theres a huge stack in play behind me at 100/200, I'd be making lots of 2.5BB raises and folding to shoves over me, unless the big stack is very loose or in the big blind. But I just feel very confined with the big stack behind me and pretty much only enough chips to shove or fold, and almost end up letting my cards determine if I bubble or not, which I think is bad and so I was hoping I could get some insight into how you guys play in this situation.

I could try posting a series of hands of me playing on the bubble, but I imagine it would take some time and effort to read through and I feel like you guys are helping me with my game immeasurably already, I don't want to bog you down with a long series of hands.

[ciaran]

This particular hand is a shove, but it's near the bottom of the range I'd want, and it does matter a bit how good/bad the blinds are. When you're in push/fold territory, the fact that the big stack is behind you should have some effect, but not too much without there being a serious shorty around.

Prior to push/fold, it depends a lot more on the nature of the big stack. If they don't change their game much, raise/fold is fine with hands you'd normally be aggressive with, but if the big stack is pushing people around, you really need to tighten up with anything you aren't willing to go to the felt with. Also of note, you can shove wider than 10 BB (up to 13-15) in a lot of these spots, and it's often better to do that than raise-fold with some hands vs certain opponents.

[teknique]