Another weapon to use

Dan Harrington makes the analogy to the different moves and ploys as golf clubs.  You use a few select clubs most of the time, but for those rare occurrences, when you need it, you have that perfect move for a particular situation.

I was playing Osiris the other evening, and lost like 3-4 heads up matches.  He told me that I was too timid as a big stack, I thought about it, and I agreed.  And so, I tried something new, and well, I learned something today about bubble play.

3 players remain with the top position winning $54, 2nd winning $6, nothing for 3rd.  I find myself 10K to the 2 small stacks, both were even, about 2.5K each. (Starting with 3 players I was down to less than 600 in chips, got lucky to get called with a winning hand, and then doubled again with a set vs. flush draw and rebuilt to my strong lead.)

Well, everyone knows that if you're big stack, and there's a bubble, you should use that opportunity to steal like mad:
I could have just let them knock each other out, but the result would be that I'm a 10k stack vs. 5k stack.  While not bad, it could be much better:

If I continue to obviously steal, they may roll over and play dead, each hoping for 2nd.
Here's the fine point that I learned:
I did my best to steal from them both evenly.

I was actively stealing with total bluffs; I would try and create opportunities to punish the larger stack more, and give the little guy a break.

I didn't want them to get unbalanced, because it made it difficult to steal from the both of them.

With the blinds at 200-400, the little guy on the BB, I call, attempting to force the big guy out; his thought being that I would end the little guy.  But after the flop, maybe I'd go easy on the small stack, if that would even them up with 2nd place.  (I kind of have to, anyway, see below) That puts pressure back on the other stack and he has to play more marginal hands.

Maybe the bigger stack gets too big?  I bet enough that makes him less than the small stack if he decides to play.  He's not going to gain enough to be a threat to me, but he could end up crippling himself; a lose-lose proposition.  He folds with anything less than a premium hand.

I leave the short stack to fend for himself when he's really short; he'll get too antsy and won't be a good target to steal from.  I'll leave that to the other stack, so they get even again.  What I don't want is to let the big stack double thru me, or get rid of the small stack until I've stolen the maximum amount from their combined stacks.  It's much easier to smash an ant than a weasel.

I don't know if this tactic is always possible, but it's a good situation to try and create.

Oh, yeah, I won.