Advanced SNG Tactics - Calling Wide on the Bubble

Today I'd like to take some time to "give something back" to the poker community by explaining an exciting new strategy I have developed to exploit aggressive regs on the bubble of 6-max SNGs. Let me just preface it by saying that this is an advanced strategy and not for the faint of heart!

Let's look at an example from a SNG I played recently.

***** Hand History for Game 11705492463 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $109 USD Buy-in Trny: 69050498 Level: 5  Blinds(150/300)
Table Speed #2094209 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 3/6
Seat 5: Hero ( 5,400 )
Seat 3: Villain ( 6,000 )
Seat 2: Player 3 ( 600 )
Trny: 69050498 Level: 5
Blinds(150/300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero[  Jc 8s ]
Player 3 folds
Villain is all-In  [5,850]
Hero calls [5,100]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, 2c, Th ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8c ]
Villain shows [ Kc, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
Hero shows [ Jc, 8s ]two pairs, Jacks and Eights.
Villain wins 600 chips from the side pot 1 with a pair of Kings.
Hero wins 10,800 chips from the main pot with two pairs, Jacks and Eights.

Here we're on the bubble of a $109 6-max SNG. So far so good! After the cripple stack folds Villain is going to exploit his big stack by shoving into us super wide. Let's suppose for this example that he's shoving a range of 100% here. Now, conventional strategy would tell us to fold and wait for aces. The problem is that Villain is going to keep shoving and we're going to blind away, looking really stupid in the process.

But hold your hoses, what if we fight fire with fire? What would happen if we exploit Villain by calling 100% of the time? "That's it! David's finally lost it!" I hear you cry, metaphorically. But wait, before you lock me away and throw up the key let's just look at the maths.

Villain is shoving 100%. That means if I call with a range of 100% we will both have exactly the same range.

If we both have the same range then clearly we will both have 50% equity in the pot. 

If we win, we'll double up and be almost guaranteed to cash every single time.

Any good reg will tell you, an "in the money" percentage above 40% in 6-max turbos is excellent, and here we can expect an "in the money" percentage close to 50%! Obviously if we lose then we just chalk it up to a bad beat and move on - there's no point worrying when you lose a coinflip in poker.

When Villain shoved in the example above I put him on a range of something like J7s. That made J8 an even easier call because I have his range dominated (unless he makes a flush). I was actually very unlucky that Villain turned up with KK here, given his wide range. Fortunately the luck evened out on the board and I took it down.

An added bonus with this strategy is that it makes you extremely difficult to read. How can your opponents ever put you on a hand when you could be calling with literally any 2 cards?

Let me know any success stories you have in the comments, and happy hunting!

David