I was railing a fellow Canadian player the other night in one of the larger guaranteed tournaments on 888. For the benefit of the player's privacy, I won't mention his name or the particular tournament as I wouldn't want to ruin his image or give too much personal insight into his style. I was also in the tournament but managed to bust my first hand :)

The tournament started rather normally for our Canadian friend - he built his stack rather quickly, as he does through his aggressive play. It's not unusual for me to look at the leaderboard and he is already on double or triple the average stack before I've played a hand. Unfortunately this often leads to rollercoaster or yo-yo like tournaments for him, with lots of quick ups and downs.

With about 40 players left (20 paid), he took a bad beat dropping him from upwards of 20 000 chips down to about 4100 as the blinds were fast approaching.

The Canadian player played a very good bubble on his short stack. He didn't nurse his short stack hoping to outlast other players so that he could limp into the money. However he was also careful to not tilt and throw away his remaining chips in a bad spot.

He was patient at first, folding a number of hands. This established a tight image, and perhaps convinced his opponents that he was only playing premium hands waiting to get into the money.

Once the bubble was close, 25 players remaining, he began his attack. He made sure his only move was to shove all in preflop, as he had approximately 4000 chips and the blinds were 250/500, meaning he had less than 10 big blinds in his stack. By only shoving preflop, and not raising or calling, he puts the maximum amount of pressure on his opponents and gives himself the best opportunity to take down the blinds uncontested.

When the action folded to him in late position he would shove his stack into the middle regardless of his cards, since the players behind him were on stacks only a slightly larger than his, so calling his all-in would mean they would essentially be putting their tournament on the line. If he picked up a good hand in early or middle position, he'd shove as well, so that if he is called by a player who thinks he is making a move, he has a big hand and a good opportunity to double up and get back in the game.

By effectively employing this strategy he built his stack from 4000 to 8000 chips without having to show a hand. This is the benefit of having an effective Bubble Strategy.

The bubble soon burst and the blinds were getting high once again.

Our player was down to 6000 chips and under the gun, where he decided to make a stand with a Suited Connector.

I am in 100% support of this play. When you are trying to make a stand with a short stack, there comes a point when you have to decide to push whatever hand you have and hope it holds up, or to wait until you're in the blinds and hopefully find a big hand.

When you are under-the-gun and decide that you have to play this hand, or the next one (big blind), I will take a suited connecting hand under the gun. Since you are on such a short stack, it's very likely you are going to be called at least once, and if you're going to be called more than once, you want a hand that is going to give you live cards and draws. A hand like A2 is a good hand to be staking your tournament life on when you know you're only going up against one opponent, say for example you're in Small blind versus big blind and the rest of the table has folded. A2 would be a pretty decent hand to push all in with here.

However under the gun, you still have the entire table left to act behind you, so if there are players who are going to play this hand against you, there is a good chance your A2 will be dominated and you'll be left with a small window of success.

Having a hand like 56s or 89s in this spot may not be your first choice, but it will, in the long run, give you more success against multiple opponents than a single ace or king.

This is what happened in this spot. Our Canadian player shoved T7 suited, he was called by 88 and JJ. The board ran out 3 4 6 T 7 and our Canuck tripled up and was back in the game.

Very shortly after he managed to get in a coin flip scenerio with KQ against 99, hit a King and got his much needed double up to get back above average.

From this point on our player managed to make a number of marginal calls that most average players would be afraid to make. One example of this type of play was when our player was in big blind on approximately 25 000 chips. The action folded around to the Cut Off (player before the button), who shoved all in for about 3500 chips.

The button and the small blind folded, and our player made the call from big blind with K2s. The Cut off short stack turned over QJ and our player won with his King high.

At this point, the table erupted. At least half a dozen players at the table were going crazy in the chat box talking about how lucky he was, and how poorly he was playing, that he couldn't miss, and hits all his draws.

The player had made aggressive raises and calls, playing his position very well, and all the opponents could focus on was the fact that he won a couple of pots with hands that were considered less than ideal, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded them.

Our player managed to storm his way to the final 3, when he ran into a couple of cold deck situations and was eliminated in the 3rd. Upon his elimination the remaining two players celebrated and commented on how lucky he was to get that far.

The next time you're sitting at a table and a player is seemingly winning every hand, take a step back and ask yourself "is this a case of short term variance? Or maybe there is more to this player's success than a lucky run of cards."