Comments –  When it gets down to crunch time in four handed play, you have to be willing to lose.  Let me repeat that – You have to be willing to lose.  If you are playing to cash, than you aren’t playing to your full potential.  This doesn’t mean that you just wildly throw your chips in the middle with no regard for anything – because that is not aggression, that is stupidity.  I am saying that in order to give yourself the best opportunities to win – you have to utilize the power of your big stack to it’s full potential – and that means taking some big ‘risks’.

Late game aggression is a combination of stack strength and opponent fear.  When you have the big stack at your table (not by only a couple hundred, but by a good amount (1500-4000 approximately) – you have now earned Table Captaincy.  Once you hit a certain amount of chips, you usually are credited by your opponents with the special luxury of ‘deciding’ who gets to cash and who doesn’t.  Your stack is so powerful that you can pretty much decide who you are going to target.  Especially in low buy in SNG’s, players are more likely to just want to cash – because half the thrill to them is just being able to continue to play poker.  If they don’t at least make a little bit of money back, they usually won’t be able to handle it emotionally, making their decision easier to lay back and try to make the money easier.  This means there are going to be a ton of uncontested pots where you are able to utilize your big stack and pick up all the small pots.

Eventually, you will be able that other luxury of the big stack – being able to afford to try and knock out your short stacked opponents with less than premium hands. 

I would suggest only doing this a couple times throughout the late stages, and only if your opponents haven’t shown any reckless call in styles.  You really don’t want a caller, so it helps if you get the slightest impression of timidity from them throughout the course of the SNG. 

The other beauty of this play is that you now appear to be a very wild and reckless player – something that no one really likes to play this.  You will start to get more walks in your BB, because your opponents realize that it really just isn’t worth it to try to raise you knowing that you have shown the capability of raising all in.  They are very likely to wait for a big hand to ‘bust you’ with – but you will be able to realize this easier when they do in fact want to play a hand with you.

You than can ask yourself “I’ve been showing these guys that I am not afraid to push all in…why in the world would this guy raise/limp on my BB?”  You can than more accurately assume that your opponent has a strong hand that he is willing to go all in with, and you can play accordingly.

Options -  With this particular hand, you could clearly fold here and it wouldn’t do very much damage at all.  The thing is though, by playing this style (constant all in pressure to other big stacks at the bubble) – you only give them one option which is call an all in when if they lose, they are out with no money.  This is a very, very tough call for almost all low level players – making it a profitable play.

This play works a lot better when you are paying attention to comparative stack sizes.  However, with the correct timing – you will start to see how often you can get away with the Big Stack All In Steal.  And the best part of this whole play?  Even if you don’t have the best hand – there is no guarantee for them that you won’t suck out ;).