The bubble can be the most excruciating time in a poker tournament. Hand after hand, players deliberate and take their time as they struggle to survive. Making the money is a big deal to most players, and during the bubble many players allow their stacks to dwindle to next to nothing because it’s more important for them to survive and cash than to take a chance and risk elimination. Once the bubble has burst though, the game changes dramatically, and it’s important to recognise the changes and make the necessary adjustments.
Once the money has been reached it’s a lot like when school has just been let out for the day. Everyone is excited and running around like crazy. For many people, the money they have just won is a big deal and now that they have accomplished this goal they adopt a carefree and reckless attitude. This attitude leads to bad play, and as a good player it’s your job to take advantage of such mistakes to help you go on a deep run.
Taking chances
The biggest adjustment you can make at this stage is to understand that short stacks (less than 15 big blinds) are going to be playing less than premium hands. Now they have made the money they are looking to gamble and spin up some chips. Many of these players will be moving in with a wide range of hands that they would not play in normal situations. Accordingly, you should expand the range of hands that you call all-in raises with. Where you might normally fold a hand like A-T, K-J, or pocket Fours, against a short stack’s all-in these hands suddenly become very playable – as long as you will not be crippled if you lose the hand.
Of course, just because the bubble has burst doesn’t mean the tight, survival-money players will all turn into maniacs. There will be players who think they don’t have enough chips to have a chance at winning and know that players are going to be eliminated in rapid fashion. These players will be looking to move up to the next higher payout. You can spot these players because they are behaving like players on the bubble. Sometimes they will even say something along the lines of ‘only three more bust-outs until the next pay jump.’ Take advantage of these players by attacking their blinds.
After the storm
After the frantic post-bubble action has died down, tournament play usually returns to normal. Okay, there will still be some desperate short stacks moving all-in but the majority of players will have settled down. This is an incredibly important time in your tournament. Two or three all-in confrontations can lead to a big stack and the final table or a cold elimination. There is a subtle art to playing this part of the tournament and the key factor that should drive your play is your stack size. There are two things your stack size dictates: depth of money dynamics and stack dynamics.
'Depth of money' dynamics
This is the relation of your stack size to the blinds. There are three stages of depth of money: deep, medium, and shallow. Shallow is when you only have one legitimate move and that is all-in. Aggression at this stage is the only way to go and you should not be picky with the hands you move all-in with when first to act. The medium stage affords you more play. You can make standard raises first to act and play postflop poker but you need to understand that just one or two hands can have you in the shallow stage or even out of the tournament. The deep stage is the ideal stage to be in as you are the player with the power. Your stack size allows you to take chances against short stacks and apply pressure against medium stacks.
Stack dynamics
This is the relation of your stack size to your opponent’s stack size. There are three unique relationships between stack sizes.
1) Your opponent can bust you without risking a large portion of their stack. To you, this is the most dangerous player at the table because they can put you to the test without fear of going broke themselves.
2) Your opponent is close or equal to you in chips. This relationship is where the biggest mistakes are most often made, as players will take on opponents they have covered without realising that losing the hand will put them in the position of being a short stack.
3) You have your opponent well covered. These are the opponents you want to be taking chances against because they cannot bust or cripple you.
Adjusting to short-handed play
As you close in on the final table and players are eliminated, tables will become short-handed simply because there are not enough players remaining to fill the empty seats! For example, with 200 players remaining, you won’t be playing short-handed because there are enough players to balance tables. If there are just 22 players remaining, however, there can only be two tables of seven and one table of eight. When you get down to less than three tables, play can get down to five or six-handed. This short-handed play requires a completely different style of play and if you hope to go all the way you need to recognise the changes your opponents are making and make the necessary adjustments.
The obvious change for short-handed play is starting hand selection. A hand that might be unplayable at a full-handed table is often a big hand now. For example, you might normally fold a hand like A-8 or Q-T in early position or to a raise, but short-handed this becomes a raising or reraising hand.
It’s important to pay attention to how your opponents adjust. Some won’t change – attack these players. Others will ramp up their aggression tenfold as they look to accumulate chips heading into the final table. The player that can detect these changes and play back without fear will control the table and grow their stack.
Big money jumps
An important consideration late in a tournament is the jump to the next pay level. In bigger tournaments, the difference between 13th and 12th place can be life-changing money. Take the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event as an example. 13th place paid $633,022. 12th place paid $896,730. That’s a difference of over $250,000. If you’re a short stack and that kind of money matters to you, it might be best to tighten up and wait for someone else to make a mistake. In addition, you should be looking for players who are looking to climb the cash ladder themselves. When players are doing this they are essentially telling you they will fold more often than put chips in the middle. Don’t be afraid to raise their blinds, reraise their raises or see flops with them to take the pot away from them postflop. Easy chips like these can be the difference between finishing 13th yourself and winning the whole thing.