I play small stakes with awful players but whether I am playing a 6 person table or a 9/10 person table I always fall apart 3 handed. HU is fine, im pretty good as is 4 handed. I find both of these situations relatively easy. Not focussing on anything particularly bad about my game I think it's the actual strategy and mentality of this 3 way madness.

This is the usual set up

Me - 2000 chips
Guy1 - 3000+ chips who raises every hand and has been the luckiest of all the other bad players in the tournament. He has raised about 40-50% of the hands and just got lucky against the rest of the hyper aggressive bad players who have been raising and calling with 10 5 offsuit.
Guy2 - 1500 ish chips. He has played about as many hands as myself (not many) but is scrambling to come 2nd. In fact he started this sit and go to come 2nd and he will fold every button and most small blinds unless he is holding AA KK AK etc.

What usually happens is I often get re-raised by Guy1 and then guy 2 will fold every single hand so he can win 2nd place money. He has no intention of trying to win and just tries to outlast me. Now in a fairly fast structure I can't always get my money in as good as I would like. The aggressive guy will call you down with anything and bluff at anything so If you can't catch cards it's not an ideal situation to be in at all. Any solutions of how to win, I need them badly, usually what happens is we go in 50/50 and I get busted. Guy who wants 2nd place is given it with about a 10:1 chip disadvantage for heads up.

Am I missing something simple? please let me know =)

try open pushing instead of raising therefor they cant re-raise you and you putt hem to a decision rather than you being at the decision once re-raised. I bet you find this helps,

I have no idea why I'm trying to give you advice here, but I just finished the sections on Sit n Gos in HoH (3), where he basically advocated a very conservative style of play even with an aggressive opponent, because of the importance of getting in the money. There is a greater range from nothing to 3rd than 3rd to 2nd, and if you play tight and hit a good hand chances are the big stack will pay you off. If you catch nothing chances are you still outlast the shorter stack.

If Guy 2 is really going to play that tight and predictable, then you can basically approach this as a headsup match against Guy 1. It sounds like you're letting Guy 1 bully you around with the chip advantage. I think you have 2 options here:
1) tighten up considerably by folding mediocre holdings and hit him hard with strong hands; or
2) fight fire with fire and make a big raise or push with any hand that is better than even money against a random hand (especially if Guy 2 has already folded ahead of you).
Bottom line, you need to stop leaking chips by making small raises and allowing Guy 1 to control the hand by reraising you. Fold or raise bigger.

start robbing earlier. When it gets to 4, even 5 handed. Start taking advantage of the tight nit looking for 2nd. The added blinds will help hugely.

And I agree w/ who ever said push your whole stack instead of raising as long as you have a reasonable hand. No reasonable hand, fold. The other guy's folding too so you should be able to keep pace at least, and with your selective pushes, you'll overtake him.

Doug,

you're playing right into Both opponents hands and blaming bad luck

I used to play like the guy #2 when the other two players would be as you describe (you and guy #1) and love to see guys like you make it so easy for me.

getting in the money is the hard part. If you can do that on a consistant basis, then when it comes down to three handed, play to win. Push A high, king high, broad way cards, pocket pairs, etc. Let the cards fall as they may. If you can get in the money most of the time, then get even cashings in 3rd, 2nd and 1st places, you'll do just fine in the long run. I say don't let the other guy push you around too much, and play to win like him. Or if you want you can just bend over to him and take it up the butt and try to outlast the other guy for 2nd. I may turn to that strategy once in a while too.
Robbing earlier isn't always the way to go though. In micro limits you're just going to bust out on the bubble more often than not vs the ****tards whose calling ranges are way too lose, ie, qj, j/10, a5, etc. Sometimes you can't help but get in the money as second or third place, and I'm sure Doug knows this.

So you are 2nd in chips you have 2 opitons try to win or take second from the guy who wants it......you just push with any medium strength hand that has a chance to win no raise other than allin be the one pushing 1st into pot.....or you can take the other approach to win 2nd place just fold every hand till the short stack blinds out he doesnt seem interested in making a stand just hoping you take the inevitable bad beat against the big stack....hopefully this helps

+1.

The endgame of SNGs are all about patience. I've only had it recently after donking around on and off for the last couple years, and I've drastically increased my results by being Guy #2. Someone else will do something stupid if you just hang on.

Here's the thing about being Guy #1 - you have a big stack and can afford to take the bad end of a couple 60/40s because you won't go broke and you can steal some more chips soon even if you lose. Guy #2 is just going to wait for you to be the one to lose the 60/40.