I have a love hate relationship with bounty tournaments. It's nice that you can knock out a few players and essentially be free rolling. But the bounties make people a little bit crazy. Actually more than a little bit.
I remember the first one I played in. It was a $5 + $5 that I won entry into. Right off the bat, I couldn't believe what players were going all-in with in an attempt to knock someone out and get their bounty. I tried my best to play my normal tight aggressive game, waiting for quality hands then raising to get the limpers out, to try to see the flop with as few players as possible. No matter how hard I tried to play my normal game, I continuously found myself being put all-in. I would raise with something like A-Q. After flopping top two pair, I would bet 2/3 pot and then be raised all-in by some guy holding A-6 or some such silliness. The bad part is that every time it happened the other guy would have me covered. So I would end up getting doubled up, but the other player would be left with one or two big blinds. The next hand, when they went all-in, I would get dealt something like 8-2 off.
To make a long story short, I made it to the final table without managing to collect a single bounty. But as I always say, you can't win a tournament without knocking players out on the way, which I proved by knocking out five of the other players at the final table on my way to victory. The five bounties that I collected, plus my own added up to a nice little $30 bonus, on top of the first place prize money.
For the most part though, I avoid bounty tournaments, except for one that plays during my prime playing time. Because this one takes place in between a couple of other tournaments that I play, a lot of the other players participating in it are familiar with my tight/aggressive, non
bluffing (as far as they know) playing style. I believe this limits the amount of craziness that I am subjected to. I'm happy if I can pick up enough bounties to cover my buy-in, but always prefer a deep run and a top three cash to bounties.