In order to make this work, you are going to have to have a table with some short stacks on it and you are going to have to be in position on them. If you are, you can turn up the heat and really increase the size of your stack during a period when most players tighten up.

The ideal situation will have a few stacks shorter than yours after you when you have the button or are on the cutoff. You want to be able to go hyper aggressive on these guys and not be in a position to be knocked out of the tournament if you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. While you cannot push without a hand, anytime you see decent cards, you are going to want to put pressure on the smaller stacks and force them to either fold or put their stack in the middle.

You are obviously not going to have perfect hands every time, but suited connectors and just about any A will do in this situation. You don’t have to have the best cards to put your money in the middle, but they do. If they have been playing tentatively this point, what makes you think they are going to change with money on the line?

They won’t! If they have allowed themselves to get that low on chips and hung around this long, they are not all of a sudden going to turn into a kamikaze when they have a shot at getting their entry fee and a little bit of profit back. Are you going to get called at times, absolutely, but as long as you are not putting more than 30-40% of your stack at stake, the risk is worth the reward.

On the occasions that you do get caught, you can back off again and wait out the bubble. The more hands you win, the more aggressive you should get. This is a great time in the tournament for big and medium stacks to absolutely take over and build their stacks for a run at the final table. This situation may not come up very often, but when it does, you have to take advantage of it and make as much as you can before play loosens up when that bubble is broken and everyone is back in the money.