"The Short Stack is Punking the Table"

I'm still playing tons of the $10, 9 player regular S&Gs on FullTilt, and I am running pretty good. I know I need to move up, but it's fun when your easially the best player at the table. My S&G strategy is pretty simple. I play my ultra-tight cash game strategy for as long as possible. I am also quite a bit more aggressive with the bet sizes than I would be in a cash game. If I am accumulating chips, I may play this way down to three handed and not really make any adjustments for short handed play. Once I get down to about 750 chips or 3-4 handed like above, I flip a switch and start playing a hyper loose aggressive game. This tends to throw off anyone who was paying attention to my tightness early, and usually allows me to pick up some much needed pots late.

I was in one of those south of 750 chip positions late in one last night. There were 5 players left, and I had 1/3 of the 4th players chips. Basically, I was in a lot of trouble and since it was just a $10 S&G, I decided to try playing like a maniac. The table was way tight which helped. I just got into a push or fold mode where I was pushing in with any pair, any ace, any decent K, suited conectors, two paint... These guys would not call me. So I kept it up. Shoving my stack in to pick up the blinds. Eventually, one of them remarked "The short stack is punking the table". I replied "You guys are way toooooo tight". Not only were they folding to my raises, my BB was getting a walk everytime, because they were afraid I would push.

The cool thing that happened, and I am sure this is how people win big MTTs, is I started to catch some big hands after all this aggression with crap. I picked up AA, and made my usual overbet preflop, and this time someone took a stand and I doubled through. I said "I always have AA, its a good thing you guys have not been calling". Then I picked up a good draw on the flop, and started moving chips in. I hit my draw on the turn, and kept pushing. Someone commented that it looked like a "bluffing contest", and was wondering who would back down. I didn't and knocked the guy out, who was playing a marginal hand against the maniac (me!). Then I got AA again, and knocked another guy out. The table was scared, and I ran them over for the victory after that. It felt great. I wish I could play like that all the time, and I am sure running a bunch of these S&Gs will help expand my game.

In another S&G I was in at the same time, we were on the bubble for about 15 minutes when the chip leader says "this is a good game of poker". The chip leader had me slightly covered, but the 3rd and 4th place guys were way short and on life support. One hand after he said that, I called a min raise from him with 33 and flopped a set. He had AK, and there was an A on the board. All the money went in by the river, and I won a 9k+ pot, making the chip leader the new shortest stack. I said "Still good?"