Sorry for jumping into this thread so late folks but I have read it with some degree of interest. In fairness the correct play 99% of the time is to check it down, but dont dismiss what Chris has said so lightly. OK, I understand the logic of bubbling JL at this stage of a game, Chris's theory is an advanced strategy that you wont use or need that often.
Keeping the bubble running to your advantage depends an awful lot on the conditions at your table, and withir all of these conditions existed at the time is debatable, i wasnt on the table so im unsure, but here goes.
i~ Bubble conditions must exist.
Remember not every tournament comes across bubble conditions per-say. If the table tightens up and the small stacks start to attempt to back into the $$ THEN we have "Bubble conditions". We all have seen tournies where there seems to be no change in play, and infact occasionaly the opposite. Some players can go manicial on the bubble.
ii~ You must be deep stacked.
We all probably know this already, but the more chips you have the less value each chip has. Think about losing 1.5K chips when your stack is 3k, totally crippling, where as losing 1.5K chips when your stack is 10k is a blow but esentially not going to change your outlook to the game all that much.
iii~ The bubble is in your immediate control
There is no point of attempting to extend a bubble in a large MTT, it is simply chip wasting, if the bubble exists on one table (the final table) then its in your immediate control.
iv) You are currently winning over 1 pot per orbit.
Really to keep the bubble running you need to be winning lots of pots, reallistically over 2 pots per orbit, in order to pad your stack to when the bubble is over. Otherwise why do it ? If your dominating at this point of the game and picking up lots of pots, you will want it to continue, if not, check down.
v) The small stack will still be dominated.
So you double up the small stack on purpose, not if it gives him 1/3 of you stack, it makes him too dangerous. You want to give him enough chips to back into the $$, a position that he was not in before. If you feel that hes gonna starting open pushing every hand then your gonna have to call at some stage, make sure that you dont let him have enough chips to make this effective.
So if all of the above factors are happening at your table, which will be a fairly rare occurence, let the small guy double up. If your unsure, check it down, and the vast majority of the time these table conditions wont occur.
Just dismissing Chris idea without trying to grasp the concept is slighty weak, add another snippet of information to your poker arsenl and move on.
On a side note, this concept has further reaching applications than what was described above. Here is an example of one play that happened in our poker league final table a few months back.
3 handed, deep in the $$, super tight player on my left, and ultra aggressive player on my right. I wanted to get heads up with the tight player, but he was getting blinded away, i was picking up some nice pots off Mr Aggressive, so i simply folded my BB into him in order to pad his stack for several rounds, eventually he picked off Mr Aggressive, and i happly set to blinding him off in the heads up stage.
So letting someone stay in the game sometimes is the correct play, the majority of the time its the wrong play though, but picking the times when it is correct is the key.
Great concept Dorkus, i hope ive correctly grasped it.