I made quite the catastrophic mistake here. I figured he's just going for another steal. I thought if I hit a K or 9 I'd win a sizeable pot easy.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (4 handed)

SB (t3800)
Hero (t4725)
UTG (t3265)
Button (t1710)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
2 folds, SB raises to t600, Hero calls t400.

Flop: (t1075) , , (2 players)
SB bets t800, Hero raises to t4100

I'll just say he called and won. I'm not sure how I should have played this hand.

Pre-flop: Call? Raise? Fold? Raising to say 1600 would allow me to still fold if he went over the top and was serious about the hand. But if he called the raise, I'd be faced with the all-in on the flop. I would have to hope he's bluffing with TT or QQ, or perhaps has QJ or AJ. I think folding would be too weak given my "M".

Flop: Any raise I did on this flop would make him fold (good) or pot-commit him where he'd push anyway and I'd call for the extra few hundred chips. Perhaps I should have called the flop and given up if he bets the turn.

Thoughts?

I still managed to pull out a 3rd here with a few all-in steals against the shorter-stacks (and folding when the big-stack was in the blinds).

I would have called the flop and been ready to throw it away.

Remember your own adage "it takes a bigger hand to call an all in than to go all in".

He is basically pot committing himself with the flop bet, which (if my math is correct) will have the pot around 2700 if you call and he will have 2400 or so left. Once he makes that decision, I dont see him laying this down, unless he thinks you are a complete moppet and this is some kind of weird continuation steal. Once he bets the turn, he is going to have less than 2k with a pot size around 4k. If he checks, you then have the option of taking the free river card or pushing then, if you think he whiffed and is trying to get away from the hand. Once you get to the bubble though, I would think that he would check the flop if he missed.

Im still trying to figure out how a 600 raise and call can bring a pot of 1075, but thats a different matter.

-Jus

Or... perhaps I made what would typically be the correct play but just happened to get shafted this one time by a rotten vegetable.

The hand converter often messes up the pot sizes in SNGs for some reason.

More generally, I should be asking, how do you adjust your play on the bubble when big-stacked and heads-up versus another big stack? I haven't read HoH-2 in a while, but I do recall him mentioning trying to avoid big pots against big stacks unless you have monster hands.

ok, a few thoughts.

Play it though from his angle with either hand.

Say he is on a steal. You are in the sb with 8-4. You didnt mention what size bets had been taking down the blinds (3x seems a bit small, but we will get to that in a bit). You raise it 3x in an attempt to steal the big blind. The BB calls. This means the BB has something. If the BB thinks you are trying to steal and wants to take down the pot right there, he would reraise big (2000 or all in) and hope you fold. If the BB has some kind of hand, but does not want to push in case you do have a monster, he just calls. Now the flop comes down, you have bottom pair. What are the BB's most likely holdings if he just calls? PP bigger than 4s, Ax and two broadway. Is the SB going to lead out 800 here? As I see it, he will either check-fold or push, trying to represent the king and get you to lay down your smaller pair or ace. You said you had something by calling, I just dont see this as being a very profitable play on his part.

Now say he has a monster, AK (what I would assume he had). He does not want to push, because he wants to get some action. He makes a standard raise (this is where I think that the bet looked a little small for a steal, but without knowing what was taking down the blinds, its hard to say). He is going to bet into the BB and not mind either a call (which means the BB has something, but is not in love with it) or a push (because he is only really behind KK and AA). BB calls, flop comes. He got about the best that he was hoping for, unless the BB had something odd like kj or 44. He bets out, again not careing if he gets a push or a call, but big enough to give some other odd hand, like q10, the wrong odds to call. If the BB calls, he can push the turn. BB pushes, its a pretty easy call, seeing as the BB is more likely to call/raise a smaller amount with the hands that have him dominated (AA, KK, JJ, 44, KJ) to keep the SB in the hand.

I think the fact that he was betting into the big stack is significant. Its the only person who can knock him OTM at this point. Unless he is very ballsey or very stupid, I dont think the flop bet could be a steal.

As a general rule, I avoid playing against big stacks like the plague until HU.

-Jus