The bubble of a tournament is when you are one person away from money or there is a small number of people that need to bust before the tournament is ITM.
It is very important to avoid going broke during this period. There is nothing glamorous about bubbling a tournament and collecting free equity when you’re in a position to do so is nice.
Whether you’re on a stone bubble or there is a significant payout jump coming, you should adjust your strategy to avoid unnecessary risks in favor of locking up that additional equity.
This isn’t to say that you should become overly tight on the bubble. Some players tend to take things to the extreme, folding away their chances for a deep run in favor of making it past the bubble.
Instead, you need to find a good balance based on the number of players remaining, stack sizes, and payout structures. If the payout structure is flat, you should care more about making the money. In steep structures, your focus should be geared more toward making the final table.
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Understanding ICM Implications
To better bring this point home, let’s look at an example of a tournament where there are four players remaining with equal stacks, i.e., each player holds 25% chips in play. The payouts are as follows:
- 1st – $1,000
- 2nd – $700
- 3rd – $400
- 4th – $200
On average, each player’s stack is worth $575 since everyone has the same number of chips. If you get it all in with 50% equity, your equity becomes $800, and when you lose and bust in 4th place, you pick up $200, bringing the total to $1,000.
So, if we do the math, using that $575 amount, it means that there will be a total of $1,150 in the pot, but you only get back $1,000.
The remaining $150 goes to the other two players who folded!
All stacks remaining in the tournament matter, which is why we can’t have default preflop charts for bubble play.
For example, if there are 300 players left in the tournament and you are on the bubble with five big blinds when the average stack is 25 big blinds, this is fine. There are probably a few even shorter stacks in the field, and someone is likely to go bust before you.
If, however, there are only nine players remaining, each of them with a stack of 20+ big blinds, this is not fine. You are now the shortest stack and your prospects of waiting someone out don’t look good.
Calculating Risk Premium in Important Pots
When you face a bet for all or a majority of your chips, and there are payout implications, you need more equity than indicated by pure pot odds to make the call. Sometimes, this is substantially more.
When you call and lose, you are out or nearly out of the tournament. If you win, however, you don’t double your equity.
This leads to two simple but important adjustments when playing on the bubble:
- Apply caution in marginal spots where you are at risk
- Try to play more pots where you can put an opponent at risk
In these situations, the total equity you need to make the call consists of the standard chip EV (cEV) and an additional amount of risk premium.
Calculating what your risk premium is exactly is difficult because every situation is different, but the table below shows rough guidelines on how much additional equity you need based on stack sizes:
| Your Stack | Opponent’s Stack | ||
| Big Stack | Medium Stack | Short Stack | |
| Big Stack | 18% – 35% | 6% – 8% | 2% – 4% |
| Medium Stack | 13% – 20% | 10% – 20% | 5% – 7% |
| Short Stack | 9% – 15% | 8% – 10% | 7% – 10% |
Not Everyone Is Aware Of or Care About ICM
Not all players in any given tournament are aware of ICM implications or care about getting into money. They may only be interested in winning the whole thing.
There are also those who care about making the money too much and will over-adjust when the bubble approaches or when pay jumps start to get serious.
Your opponent’s strategy is very important for how you should adjust. Against players willing to defend loosely, you’ll want to tighten up; conversely, against those who tighten up around the bubble, you can widen your range and attack their blinds with impunity.
Your stack size also matters a lot. The largest stack can attack everyone at the table; medium stacks can apply pressure to short and other medium stacks; short stacks can go after other short stacks.
Let’s look at a quick example of a bubble situation. We have A♠6♥ on the button with 100 big blinds and face a 2.5x open from the cutoff player who has 75 big blinds.
With one short stack with 30 big blinds, we can apply pressure here and 3-bet, using that ace, and they’ll have a hard time playing against us. With a couple of shorter stacks in the mix, the risk is simply too big unless they have a monster hand.
Final Tips on Postflop Play
I’ve focused mostly on preflop play in this article, as the postflop strategy is a big topic of its own. However, here are a few quick tips for navigating things after the flop in bubble scenarios.
- As a large stack, you can continuation bet and lead more often using smaller sizes, as every bet they call brings your opponent closer to an all-in.
- When the board is bad for your opponent, triple barrel more often to apply the maximum pressure, threatening to put their entire stack at risk.
- Keep the risk premium in mind when facing large river bets, and be prepared to make some big laydowns, even if you know your opponent is likelier to bluff due to ICM pressure.
The long and short of this lesson is: avoid taking unnecessary risks around the bubble and pick up free equity when it is available to you. While some opportunities will still be too good to pass on, you should be much more cautious when there are important payout implications involved.
