How do you beat a bully with trash?

Just got home from on-my-own bartender shift #2 (10+ hours today). Consensus is that I'm not lightning fast, but I hustle and keep everything running fairly smoothly. I'm pleased so far, the money is better than serving, and I'm having more fun. When people eat at the bartop, I can yuk it up a little, or talk sports with them. Or just watch sports, if it's slow.

Overall, I feel pretty good about how I've been playing recently. I feel comfortable in the $5 3-table SnG's on UB. You play from 10-handed to 6-handed or so, then get resat. Do it again, then get resat at the final table. Each time the table fills back up, I have to remind myself to tighten back up to 10-handed preflop thinking.

Top 5 paid in the 30-person SnG. I had a nice third place finish in my latest attempt. (Same night, Kev rocked the single-table SnG circuit, triple-tabling a 2nd, 2nd, and 1st. I especially like watching my friends do well on UB.)

I need to work on my strategy when facing a table-bully short-handed. Bully was on my immediate right with 22K or so, I had 10K and OtherGuy had roughly 12K. OtherGuy would fold his button, Bully would push all-in. Not every time, but often enough so that it was obvious he was pushing marginal (trash?) hands.

During the SnG, he got out to an early lead, and made the all-in overbet move several times. On the rare occasions he was called, he showed down decent hands: AJs, 88, AKo. He also had a run where he was dealt KK, KK, AKs, and AA in about two orbits.

Right at the start of his 3-handed terror, I decided to fold ATo to a shove of his. As it became more apparent that he was pushing way too often to have great cards, my own cards were horrible. I also folded a 87suited, and an A2o (I hate ace-two offsuit), before making my stand with ... A2o and about 9K in chips. His K8o hit an 8, and I was gone. Yup, I hate ace-two offsuit. I wished I had that ATo back...

Disregarding that ATo, I couldn't find a hand. No pocket pairs, trashy offsuit low cards during the barrage, and when I held AJ-suited, he folded his small blind. I almost considered calling with K3o.

The progression of that SnG was a remarkable one. Somewhere along the way, it became clear to the Bully that I was staying out of his way. I need to keep an eye on how I play against the current chipleader, and how that person perceives my play.

The SnG also made me think of the chapter I had just read in Harrington's Volume 2. The discussion of inflection points and "zones" is something that I'm going to have to consider. If I'm going to meet opponents who are going to expand their range as far as he suggests when they're in the Red & Orange zones, I will have to start considering calling all-ins with a much larger range myself.

....

I'm gonna wrap it up here. I was going to talk about a couple of the bad folds I've made recently, in the last two cash games. I'll save it for later..

Can't wait to finish up Harrington's book, but I think that'll come too late to help me this Sunday night. I'm hosting our first ever $20 Winner Takes All freezeout tourney. About a month ago, I threw up some ideas on the messageboard Albert set up, and folks were interested in the Double Stakes tourney, and the Winner Takes All format, so we're trying both. The Double Stakes was two weeks ago, with Albert and Kevin (new guy, not this guy) splitting first. With the exception of the final hand, I thought I played some pretty good poker, and walked out with 3rd place money.