In this post we are going to look at how we need to adjust in the build-up to the bubble of the tournament, the Bubble is when we are about to get into the money, so let’s say 100 people cash in the tournament, the bubble would be hands played when we are at around 130-101 people left.
Our play will depend all on our stack size, we are going to want to adjust pretty widely when we have short or big stacks and when we are a middling stack we don’t need to worry too much about altering our play.
Short Stack Play
We will want to be more careful on which hands we risk our stack with near the bubble, in this hand we have 33 UTG with just 8BBs.
Normally with 8BBs we would be pushing all-in with this hand however we have a few things to consider, we are going to have poor equity when called in this pot as we will get called by all pocket pairs over our 3’s and against all other hands we will be a coin flip.
But this isn’t the only downside to moving all-in here, we have to get our shove through the whole table and even then we only pick up an extra 4,000 chips to add to our 13,000 stack.
Whereas this would normally be a nice pick-up, it doesn’t really make too much difference to our overall position in the tournament, risking these chips here on the money bubble is a losing proposition, it’s going to be much better for us to sneak into the money after just another 2 players bust and then look to make our double up.
So we make the fold with all these factors considered.
Middling Stack Play
I don’t have a decent example offhand from recent games to show you but let’s imagine we had around 20-30BBs against a middle position raise with our hand A5s. Well in that type of scenario near the bubble there is little risk of us playing a pot, we will either look to continue aggressively on some boards or fold and as long as we are facing an opponent who we have covered we won’t be at risk at any point during the hand, so even if we get all-in and lose we can make the money.
Another good point about playing pots right on the bubble against opponents we cover is that we can apply a tonne of pressure, our opponent is going to have to play pretty straight forward and only bet with their good hands and check-fold with a lot of misses as they will have to fear missing out on cashing the tournament.
In this exact example though we opted to fold because we are facing an UTG+1 raise against a stack that has us covered. If we had a larger stack though this would be a good spot to flick in the call and apply some post-flop pressure.
Get Aggressive with a Big Stack
In this example we have a big stack covering all the players on the table apart from one, the stacks behind us left to act have 10BBs effective and we pick up KJo with 17 players remaining and 11 cashing.
This is a perfect time to apply all the money bubble pressure we can, we can get folds from a tonne of hands like small pairs and Ace high hands that don’t want to call off and risk their stack and the important part is that we are shoving with a hand that even if we are called we are likely flipping with.
It’s important to choose these types of two high card hands over say 22–44 or A2s-A5s, look to remove the worst pairs and worse Ace highs from your pushing range from the earlier positions on the table with this kind of stack and add in some wider high card hands like QTo KTo JTo J9s etc… these will play much better in pots where we get called.
As it happens this is perfect hand to show why we don’t want to push with hands like 22–44 or low Ace high hands because we get called by 77 which our KJo is in decent shape against especially on this run-out.
It would have been a much different story with regards to equity though if we had a dominated hand like a small pair or Ace high.
It’s not to say that we would never want to be shoving these hands, we can when we are in much later positions like the button or small blind but from early position we will want to take a tighter range.
Bonus Time
If you are playing from the UK you can get 10 FREE SPINS with NO DEPOSIT on a bunch of different games at BGO casino!
For players from anywhere else in the world, you can get yourself a nice little treat too, with a 100% match bonus on your first deposit.
UK customers will get a match bonus of up to £200 and for players outside the UK, you can get a 100% Bonus up to €/$300.
*UK only. New customers only. 10 Free Spins on registration once verified, available on selected games. No deposit required. 3-day expiry on Free Spins. Withdrawal fees apply. Full T&Cs apply.
*New customers only. 100% deposit match up to £200. Selected Games only. 65x wagering. Max bet 10% of Bonus up to £2.50. Max win £2,000. 7-day expiry on Bonus. 10 Free Spins on registration (UK Only). 3-day expiry on Free Spins. No Neteller/Skrill. Min deposit £10. Deposit/Withdrawal fees apply. Full T&Cs apply.