Part: Part Ten - Adjusting to Different Stacks

Pick your target

Pre-flop
Blinds 400 / 800 (100 ante)Pot 2,100 (2.6 BB)Big stack • target the mediumBTNK♦9♦● 60,000 (75 BB)YOUyou cover the tableSB● 4,000 (5 BB)ShortcommittedBB● 18,000 (22.5 BB)Mediummust surviveD

You're the chip leader on the button near the bubble. The small blind is a tiny short stack; the big blind is a medium stack desperate to survive. Folded to you with K♦9♦.

Big stack on the button; a committed short SB and a survival-minded medium BB. Best?

WhyThe medium stack in the big blind is playing to survive the bubble, which means he over-folds to protect his cash - so a button open into him carries real fold equity, and K-9 suited plays fine the times he does defend. The short stack in the small blind is committed and will jam light, but that's a hand you can release. You're not opening because of your cards; you're opening because of who's sitting behind them.
What happensThe medium lets his blind go and the short folds behind him - you scoop the blinds and antes untouched. The chips are nice, but the lesson is the order of operations: choose the target, then find a hand good enough to attack with.
You picked the opponent before you picked the hand: at a table of mixed stacks you attacked the medium stack's blind, because he's the one with a cash to protect and every reason to let it go.

Read what each stack is protecting. Near the bubble the medium stack has the most to lose and folds his blind far too often - so he's your target, not the short stack who's already resigned to gambling.