Poker Tournament Bubble Play - Tips For The Short Stack

1 . Understanding Stack Sizes. When stuck with a brief stack in a MTT, the bubble can be a precarious spot. It will help to understand which stacks are willing to take shots at knocking you out light, and which cannot afford to play against you without a monster hand. Big stacks are the major threats for your requirements; they can afford to gamble, and as a result of more modern advances in game theory, are expected to pound on the short stacks more liberally than normal on the bubble. The medium stacks are easier to play against, but according to your relative stack size, may also choose to pick for you. Your fellow short stacks are the easiest to play against, as they really have few options to cope with you when you choose to shove. Your shove itself looks strong, so to a short stack trying to eek into the bubble, the relative strength of the move itself is huge.

2. M 4-7 Play. With a stack in this range, you have a stack that will probably wait til the end of the bubble, if you opt to do so. You'll notice that most of the bigger stacks will purposely come after your blinds; your stack is actually more vulnerable compared to the super short stacks that are, that are forced to make a move. Don't be amazed to see players jockeying to pick on your blinds, even short stacks may choose your big blind to make a stand and shove. If you're playing for first (which you should be) look for spots where you imagine a big stack is getting froggy, or where a short stack is shipping it in light, and move. Getting your stack out of the M 4-7 range will allow you to really open up your game on the bubble and find a lot more profitable opportunities.

3. M 0-3 Play. This is the critical stage of the bubble; you don't have enough play to safely make it through the blinds and antes more than 3 rotations of the table. More than likely, you'll have to make a move some time in the next 5-10 hands to be able to survive. Depending on the type of poker tournament and players remaining, you may can just fold and hang on for bandar ceme - recent post by Qqidnpoker, dear life; you may have no fold equity at a table filled up with big stacks, or maybe you are so short, you don't have any fold equity anyways. When presented with these type of scenarios, think about the most useful targets at the table for making your move. Try not to let your self blind below M 2, if possible; fold equity tends to vanish once you're under 5 BB's. Keep an energetic eye on the bubble itself, and do whatever you can to squeeze into it. Remember; a double up from M2 to M4 won't drastically help you in the long run, but going from M2 to M0 keeps you from cashing. Not a big deal in a small tournament, but in a $10k buy-in event, can be quite a huge chunk of change for an amateur player.