BUBBLE PLAY?

What's the best strategy when approaching the bubble? I seem to keep getting busted near the bubble.. What's the best approach to this?

It depends on the chip situation at the table. If you're the short stack, then you have to double up or at least chip up enough so that you're not the short stack. If you bust out in the process, well so be it.

If you're in 3rd, and the 4th place player is close to your chip count, then you still are in danger. You need to be a little more cautious because you do have more equity in this spot, but that shorty could easily overtake you, leaving you as the short stack, in which case you revert to the previous ideas.

If you're in the 3rd and the shortstack is very short or crippled, you have to be SUPER tight. If he's short enough, I'm talking folding KK and maybe AA preflop tight, again depending on how the chips are distributed. But you have so much equity from letting the shortstack die, that you simply cannot for any reason put that in jeopardy.

If you're in 2nd place, you have to be tightest of all. You have a TON of equity now, and are virtually guarenteed to make the money. If you get caught up in a hand you shouldn't have and get crippled by a shorty who still had enough of a stack, or you make the awesome play of going against the chip leader and lose, then you just forfeited so much money that I'm going to puke. So you have to be the tightest in this spot.

As the chip leader you have free will to basically own the table. Especially if you're a significant leader. If the other players understand bubble strategy, (they probably don't) then they simply have to fold almost their entire range, and for some people, like the 2nd place guy, his entire range. You have the threat of elimination, and everyone who's not the shortstack is going to run away, expecting the two of you to get it in eventually. You'll often pick up so many chips before that hand comes around that it ends up being a freeroll. And if the two shortstacks are near one another in chips, it's even better. They both fold trying to outlast the other one, and you just rob them blind.

Also, if you're getting busted near the bubble a lot, there could be some other leaks in your game. It's hard to say. I bust out everywhere from dead last to the bubble as well, but that doesn't mean I'm doing anything wrong necessarily.

If you have 10 blinds and get folded to your SB and jam, get snap called by AK in the bb and lose in 5th place, that's probably not too bad. But if you're limping into pots along the way, trying to play poker with hands like KQ, AT, QJs, and then the blinds get bigger, and you bleed a little more, and a little more, until you're nursing a shortstack with 6 guys left praying to somehow make the money, then you have some serious issues going on fundamentaly with your game.

There's a lot of things that could occur along the way to make people bust around the bubble.

Thanks Mase31683, how many games do you play before you can accurately analyze your progress... Such as ROI, etc... I'm thinking about playing at least 100 tourneys to determine if I can beat this limit or not.. What do you think is a good number considering the variance in tourney's and sit'ngos.... say 45 player sit'ngos, 90, and 180.. and regular MTT with over 1,000+people....

well i had this doubt many months back, and i read articles and watched vedios of daniel negreanu about bubble play...
Watch this vedio of daniel negreanu explaining the strategy for bubble play...

http://vodpod.com/watch/1474153-poke...nu-bubble-play

I am sure this will help u a lot...

Thanks spiderman, I watched the video and many more... I did not know this website was there... Thanks for your help..

Great video, thanks for sharing!

uhm,i know my strategy is weird but im very agressive ..

always pot re raise with like an inside draw

and also raise like every hand higher then q7 of lol

but thats when im above avg if im not i fold every hand

except aa,kk,qq and ak

but i play like this because others afraid of bubbling too!

and if u have a healthy stack even chipleader is afraid to gamble

and take a big hit

hope this helps somehow

you have a point there, but if you go all guns blazin in the bubble, people are going to pick up on this fast and will try to catch you with your pants down.
if you decide to be extremly aggresive during bubble play, i would only do so for a very limited amount of hands. sooner or later someone will pick up a big hand and teach you a lesson.

not with me ..in a cash tourney unexperienced players try to CASH not WIN..learnt it from scott fischman,do the opposite...

I like to play untra aggressive near the bubvble especially when small stack are in the blinds its a great way to steal and build up ur stack while they are trying to wait there way in ...even the larger stacks wont usually take you on unless they pick up a monster hand because they dont want to chance looseing there large stack at such a critical time i think if u have a mid range size stack this is a great stragedy to use

I can't help you too much with anything other than 1 table sng's. Those are the only tournament type game I know much about. There can be a lot of variance in even those. From what I've noticed a lot depends on what time of day you're playing.

I played 18 sngs last night with something like a 130% ROI. On Saturday I did about the same. (I don't play sng's too often, I'm mostly a cash player).

I've done 36 today, with a negative ROI. My EV ROI is still gross, like 5%, which at the games I'm playing, isn't great. If I was at a $200+, I'd be real happy with 5%. Or you know, the $5k's like skilled_sox, lol.

So far this month I've played 76 sngs, and I'd say your estimate of 100 is pretty good. My EV ROI was a rollercoaster for about the first 30 tournaments, then started to level out around 60 or 70 to something near my overall ROI in these games.

However my actual ROI was much more sporadic, as one would infer from the fact that one is almost always winning ore losing more than what the EV was.

Playing 100 or so and then seeing where you're at sounds pretty solid.

I think this depends entirely upon the payout structure.

It depends on what your goal is. If your goal is just to cash, it's amazing how low on chips you can be and still limp into the money by folding *everything* but AA and KK. This is because invariably other players will get impatient and overplay hands like AJ, AQ, and small pairs. Happens every time.

Now, if your goal is to go deep, then bubble time is a great opportunity to pick up some dead chips. Pick on the short stacks who are trying to coast in. Playing even moderately aggressively preflop (2x BB) depending on the blinds, antes, and your chip situation can yield amazing results.

You are correct, except for the folding everything but AA and KK. If your goal is to just limp in to the cash, fold AA and KK. They can be cracked. If your ss then you will give odds to others call and won't have a great chance of isolating your opp. If goal is to just sneak into the cash, fold it all and stall stall stall.

there are many factors as how you should play the bubble stack sizes should be a major one. also the pay out structure should be another. what would happen if you double up? would it give you a very good chance to win? would it even guarantee that you cash? are there others likely to go out before you if you fold? basically what quity does your chips have now and what equity do you stand to gain or lose?

I would say pick your spots.. keep track of how many BB's you have left compared to the people left before the bubble. If your going to push it too close.. choose a spot and pick up the blinds or at best double up into saftey.

It definetly hurts bubbling but that's part of the game.

aggressive style, you can not win if you not have a little "blood" in you.
ps: I'm sorry, but i dont not speak so good English.


DulceNina