Bubble Play In Low Stakes Tournies

SaintNick1968

SaintNick1968

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'C'mon, getting close... Just time bank a bit.... 3/4 of the people left get paid... So close.... Dammit!'
This seems to be me an awful lot, and it's really bothering me. I seem to between the top third and the bubble in about half of the tournies I play, and I think there must be a leak in my game here. I rarely get the mincash, with a lot of my wins being bigger, which keeps me +roi at small stakes, but I go out close to the bubble far too much. What can I do to improve my play? I generally play a fairly loose game, but when I get very close to the bubble with a shorter stack I often shut down a lot, especially against fishy opponents who will call my shoves a lot. Sometimes I almost go down to zero in order to limp past the bubble, and I'm wondering if this is a mistake. Should I be attacking medium sized stacks with shoves more before I run down to zero, at what stage should I start to adapt my play for the bubble, and how willing should I be to call shoves on the bubble with a very short stack? Any help? 😤
 
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karl coakley

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You really need to have a better game plan, or should I say have a "game plan".

You need to think of a tournament in stages. The early stages (before antes), the middle (antes till the bubble) and late (bubble to first).

Now, you need to make a plan on how to play each section. Some play tight early, then loosen up in the middle. Some play loose early and tighten up in the middle. How you play is dependent on your style. During these first two stages you need to gather chips AND STAY AHEAD OF THE BLINDS.

If you start getting below 20BB you need to start taking more chances.

Personally, I don't worry about the "bubble". I never really think about it until I see we are hand for hand, my main focus is staying ahead of the blinds. Doing this, puts me at the "bubble" with at least 15-20+ blinds and I'm not at risk of being the bubble boy.

Yes, I might bust out early, but that is okay. I'd rather bust out early than play for 2 hours to bust on the bubble with nothing.

You need to set yourself up for success, not just to min-cash. Stay ahead of the blinds and take more chances early.
 
SaintNick1968

SaintNick1968

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You really need to have a better game plan, or should I say have a "game plan".

You need to think of a tournament in stages. The early stages (before antes), the middle (antes till the bubble) and late (bubble to first).

Now, you need to make a plan on how to play each section. Some play tight early, then loosen up in the middle. Some play loose early and tighten up in the middle. How you play is dependent on your style. During these first two stages you need to gather chips AND STAY AHEAD OF THE BLINDS.

If you start getting below 20BB you need to start taking more chances.

Personally, I don't worry about the "bubble". I never really think about it until I see we are hand for hand, my main focus is staying ahead of the blinds. Doing this, puts me at the "bubble" with at least 15-20+ blinds and I'm not at risk of being the bubble boy.

Yes, I might bust out early, but that is okay. I'd rather bust out early than play for 2 hours to bust on the bubble with nothing.

You need to set yourself up for success, not just to min-cash. Stay ahead of the blinds and take more chances early.
I don't think that you can argue that the best approach is to essentially ignore the bubble until hand for hand.

I do have an idea of how I play throughout the tournament, and I know that it is correct to be much tighter in the early stages of the tourney, and then loosen up later and try to steal the blinds and gain a big stack as the antes kick in and you get less BB. When you get close to the bubble, I know that ICM becomes very important as each extra chip is worth less, and when you are a big stack you need to attack the medium stacks who are bubble aware and who will fold a lot. If you just ignore the bubble, I think that you will be far more likely to bust if you are calling just as wide as in the earlier stages or the tourney. My main provl
 
SaintNick1968

SaintNick1968

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*My main problem is that I'm often not sure how much I should be shoving on the bubble when I know that most players are going to fold more, and I'm also not sure if I should allow a 5-10BB stack to go down to almost zero just to get past the bubble. 😕
 
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Mauno

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I try to keep my stack above average if possible. It allows to play more ;) With low stack I just try to be patient and wait for a moment. Making right decision is most dificult then.
 
SaintNick1968

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Yes there is defiantly value in building a big stack by being very tight agressie in the early stages, so that you can bully the medium stacks and be in with a better shot at winning, but chip preservation is also important in tournies. It's the medium to short stack on the bubble that confuses me as well. 😝
 
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Sourtubbie

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The problem sometimes reflects how you are playing early in the tourney.
A lot of people get stuck on the early exits and fear them like the plague and yet its the best chance to double up against mostly aggro fish early.
When I was limping to mincashes a lot this was one of my holes and getting caught up in a flip near the bubble is not always a bad thing,would rather bubble on a chance to go deep than min cash repeatedly and just scrape by.
Since you state you are aggro it could also be a issue of when and how you are getting aggro that could be making you more than not under the sweaty chance of a mincash.

When you say ROI percentage,what are we looking at? 15-25 or higher!
 
DougPkrMonsta

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Yes there is defiantly value in building a big stack by being very tight agressie in the early stages, so that you can bully the medium stacks and be in with a better shot at winning, but chip preservation is also important in tournies. It's the medium to short stack on the bubble that confuses me as well. 😝

What I would suggest is watching some Twitch streams of tournament players and seeing how they handle the bubble situations you describe.

In my experience when you are short-stacked / below average in chips you should focus on getting the min-cash, but without passing up chances of getting back into the tournament.

So many people agree nowadays that big stacks should be putting pressure on medium stacks around the money bubble and there are players that take this advice way too far and get themselves in trouble. There are some good spots for medium stacks to make chips by "allowing" big stacks to pressure them as well!

Yes, you can attack around bubbles and make some chips but no that doesn't mean that suddenly very loose players are going to start folding just because you put them all in.

Good luck to you! :D
 
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sillymunchie

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i simply try to ignore the bubble, if your at 10bb dont fold your Ax type hands, carry on trying to look for the blinds + your double up,
if you have dwindled to 5bb then you should of been pushing for your tournament sooner, regardless of the fact you might get called.

Most times im aware of the final table chip stack, this is the chip stack that is needed essentially to guarentee a final table, its not something everybody should look at during a game as it can put the focus on taking too many risks, but if you have a huge lead, you can see how close you are, and it means you can tighten up and start looking where your chips on the table are going to come from.
 
mcgregor_415

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Most of the poker books are saying that in the tournament play the best players are trying to improve their stack attacking around the bubble, where most of the regular players are tight, specially those with short stacks.
If you have a long time strategy to be a successful tournament player, you may want to loose a bit your strategy, but you must feel comfortable with that, to be in control of your steals and to know which player on the table is vulnerable.
 
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karl coakley

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I don't think that you can argue that the best approach is to essentially ignore the bubble until hand for hand.

I do have an idea of how I play throughout the tournament, and I know that it is correct to be much tighter in the early stages of the tourney, and then loosen up later and try to steal the blinds and gain a big stack as the antes kick in and you get less BB.

Be careful with that one... "correct" poker doesn't win and could be part of the problem you are having. Anyone can sit around and wait for a hand then play aggressively. If poker was that easy, everyone would be a winner. The problem is that while you are waiting, sometimes the cards come, sometimes (more often than not) they don't.

You have to find a medium and keep your stack growing. While you could play tight the beginning of a tournament, and I don't think its wrong, you could also see a lot of flops for a small percentage of your stack. This leads to large stack early.

Every tournament is different. If its a donkey fest with all in after all in, I play tight. It its a tight tournament (table) I will play a lot of 67,78, small pairs, ect... trying to get my stack growing. Whether tight or loose, you need to play the way everyone else is not, there really isn't a "correct" way.
 
SaintNick1968

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Thanks for all the replies. I'll try to change my play so that when I have a shorter stack I don't pass up opportunities to get back into the tourney (although I really do disagree with the people who suggest that I can just comletely ignore the bubble). I think that I need to try to double up more and be more realistic as to how long I can tank my way into the bubble with a couple of BB. I also need to think about which opponents are going to be really tight on the bubble, and I need to steal from them a bit more. I might also try to loosen up my strat earlier in the tourney so that I don't have these tricky spots near the bubble with a short stack so much, but as I said in the beggining I am a fairly loose player generally as it is. As for watching people on Twitch, I do this a bit, and I remember watching Elky as he bubbled the WCOOP main event on stream. He definately adapted his play a lot for the bubble by tanking and tightening up, and that tourney must have taken at least an hour and a bit to lose 10 out of 200 people on the bubble, but he ended on the bubble as well 😔. Hopefully I can watch a few more streamers in the future to improve my bubble play. Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully it will make a difference! 😀
 
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sillymunchie

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just dont get us wrong, by ignore the bubble were not saying completely ignore it, but ignore it in the sense that your not tightening up just to get through it,

as play progresses you see players start to tighten up and naturally you should start loosening ur range against them, they will fold alot more and make it clear when they have something, you will get ur chips from them when they blatently dont have much as they try to squeeze through, once the bubble bursts you really want to tighten ur range unless you are 10bb or less because when bubbles burst it brings forth maniacs trying to get back after playing so tight
 
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paulsmall007

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Why even wait till your at five blinds or less. Download a push fold chart and at 10 bigs start throwing it in, why wait for aces to come with five or less blinds and u just end up going out soon after
 
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Stonwy1991

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I'll even fold aces on bubble. It's always a chance your aces can get crack
 
SaintNick1968

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I think that most people would agree that when you are down to so few BB that you have no fold equity it's correct to fold a lot of stuff if you know that you are going to make the money if you fold, but even if you doubled up you would still be far below average. I think the main point which I got wrong was that I need o be more aggressive against people who do understand the bubble, an when I have a medium stack I shouldn't pass up opportunities to double up. It makes more sense really I guess when you consider that some people are super tight on the bubble. So I guess you could say I should 'ignore' it a bit more, although I do think that my calling range has to be super tight. As for why I get down to less than 5BB, it might be a case of me trying to slow down for the bubble too soon, even before I could fold my way past it, but sometimes it just happens. I know my push fold game quite well, and I really don't think that's the issue here. Thanks again for all the people who have replied 😀.
 
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