“On the Bubble”
Suppose I told you that you had entered a 400 player poker tournament but finished out of the money. OK, it happens. What if I told you that they paid 36 places in this event and you finished 312th? So what, right? But what if I told you that paying those same 36 places you finished 37th. Ouch! Missing the money by one place is called finishing On the Bubble.
Now “bubbling” happens in every tournament, it has too. It isn’t fun, it is very frustrating but there are poker lessons to be learned about the bubble and about playing on the bubble. Play around the bubble can be very different then normal tournament play, the reason is that when we get near the bubble many players start to play very tight and very conservative. Not only do they not want to finish on the bubble, they want to make the money.
Some players will actually stop entering pots with a medium or large stack until the bubble is broken and they are in the money. This is a very passive play and generally a bad strategy if you are trying to win the tournament. You see with players getting super tight, a good player can steal blinds and antes with impunity from those players who have gone into a defensive “bubble shell”.
Most times the bubble player is a short-stacked player, who “had” to make a move with their small chip stack. One way to avoid that situation is to keep track of the aproaching bubble and take advantage of those players who are playing to “make the money.” Remember playing just to make the money is not a optimal strategy for winning the tournament or finishing in the top few prize positions. Keep playing hard right to the bubble is a much better poker strategy.
That being said, be careful right after the bubble pops! As soon as players are in the money there is often a “reverse bubble effect” and players who have been folding hand after hand will now start firing their chips into the pot. This is particularly true of players in the bottom third of the chip stack race. Now that they are in the money, they want to move up to a bigger payday but since they have a short stack compared to those on top, these players will often begin to take more chances with their chips. Be ready to grab those chips at risk but be careful of the free-for-all that sometimes develops right after the money bubble has burst.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #90
