Bubble strategy: surviving and profiting
Bubble strategy in poker turns on one insight: just before the prizes, chips are suddenly not worth the same any more.
A good bubble strategy starts with understanding what the bubble is: the phase of a tournament where just a few more players are left than there are prizes. One elimination and everybody is in the money. At exactly that moment the value of every chip changes, and anyone who sees it gets more advantage here than in any other tournament phase.
Why chips count differently here
In a cash game every chip is a fixed amount of money. In a tournament it is not: doubling your stack does not come close to doubling your expected prize money, while being eliminated costs everything. That effect is described by the Independent Chip Model, ICM for short, a model that translates stacks into prize money value. The full explanation is in what is ICM. For the bubble the conclusion is simple: a loss weighs heavier than a win, so big confrontations without top cards are more expensive than they look.
Short stack: surviving with judgement
With a short stack on the bubble your first goal is reaching the prizes, certainly if several stacks are shorter than yours. Waiting then literally pays: every player who goes out before you earns you money. So play tight, avoid borderline cases and do not gamble your tournament life away with a mediocre hand. Shutting down completely is not the idea either: if the blinds keep eating your stack, you have to pick a good moment in time to go all in, betting your whole stack, before you get too short to put anybody under pressure.
Big stack: turning up the pressure
With a big stack the logic reverses. Your opponents cannot afford a confrontation with you, and they know it. So raise more often, attack the medium stacks, because they have the most to lose, and steal blinds nobody dares defend. For the big stack the bubble is the most profitable phase of the whole tournament. Do watch out for other big stacks: against them your leverage does not apply, so you keep avoiding those confrontations without a strong hand.
The classic bubble mistakes
Three mistakes cost the most money on the bubble. One: with an average stack, carrying on as if it were a cash game and seeking out marginal confrontations. Two: as a short stack, freezing up and blinding away while there were perfectly good moments to steal. Three: as a big stack, meekly folding along instead of harassing the field. All three come from the same thing: not seeing that the situation asks for a different range than usual. The basics of that are in our tournament strategy for beginners.
Work it out instead of guessing
Bubble decisions feel unnatural: folding a hand you would normally play blind, or raising with cards you would otherwise throw away. Happily this is excellent to train. Enter a concrete situation in the free ICM calculator and see in money what a decision is worth. After twenty such sums your instinct starts to follow the mathematics, and that is exactly what you need on the bubble.
frequently asked questions
Bubble questions.
What exactly is the bubble? +
The phase of a tournament just before the prizes start. If for instance 100 players get paid and 101 are left, you are exactly on the bubble: one elimination separates everybody from guaranteed prize money.
Do I always have to play tight on the bubble? +
No, that depends on your stack. With a short stack surviving is often worth the most and you adjust your range considerably. With a big stack it turns around: you can put others under pressure precisely because they do not want to be eliminated.
Why would I fold an all in with a good hand? +
Because chips on the bubble do not translate into money in a straight line. Doubling gains less prize money value than being eliminated costs you. So even with a hand that wins slightly more often than it loses, calling for your whole stack can lose money.
Does bubble strategy apply to sit and gos too? +
Yes, even more strongly. In a sit and go with nine players and three prizes, the bubble with four players left is a large part of the game, and the ICM effects are more extreme than in a field of thousands. Push fold knowledge and an understanding of ICM are practically compulsory there.
practise the bubble dry
Decide under pressure, without the pressure.
In Pokiq you practise bubble situations with an explanation for every decision, so that at the table you already know what you are doing before the pressure starts.