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Poker Tournament Strategy - Playing the Bubble
Depending on your chip stack and the aggressiveness of your table, each player will play the bubble of a tournament differently. Some players will tend to tighten up immensely while others will open up more often than any other point in the tournament in order to build up a stack. If you are sitting a large stack this may be your opportunity to follow this "bulldozer" strategy and apply pressure as often as possible.
If you sit with a smaller stack, you may want to sit back and tighten up until the money. This will depend on a number of different influences, including if the cash is a substantial amount of your bankroll, such as the Main Event may be at the WSOP. If you are constantly playing online and are now playing in a regular sized tournament, this is your chance to build your stack to a leader or push back to average if you're sitting on a low stack.
Playing the Low Stack on the Bubble
As discussed before the short stack can be played two ways during this nervous section of a multi-table tournament. These two different strategies will depend on your bankroll and what this cash means to you. If this is a small tournament compared to your bankroll, it is the perfect opportunity to begin an extremely aggressive stage of the tournament.
Blinds at this point are now more unprotected than they will be in probably any other section of the tournament. At this point with a low stack you may only hold around 10 big blinds, so acquiring these blinds around twice a round will add value to your stack. Stick to late position raises in this case and shoving in the small blind when it is folded to you, rather than presenting a hand in early position in hopes of others folding.
If cashing in this tournament will be a substantial cash for you, then you may want to remain slightly more tight until the money. You can still afford to push in the small blind into the big blind when it is folded to you, but you may wish to avoid the late position blind stealing, depending on how many blinds you hold. If you have less than 8 blinds, you may have no choice but to attempt a double up before reaching the money.
Playing a Mid-Stack
If you are sitting on an average stack at this section of the tournament, odds are you will have no problem cashing. So your best strategy is to build up your stack above average in order to have a substantial influence on your future tables. The key to this is picking which opponents from which to steal blinds. Try and observe the tightest small stacks that are hoping to cash and apply pressure to their blinds. You will undoubtedly pick up their blinds often. Many medium sized stacks will attempt to coast into the money as well, so a few attempts at their blinds will work as well. But do not get overly aggressive, or attempting to steal blinds more than twice a round. Other larger stacks will pick up on this and three bet you pre-flop making you waste your pre-flop raise.
Playing the Large Stack on the Bubble
If at this point in the tournament if you hold a substantial chip stack you have the opportunity to build it to a much greater level. Because the bubble is such a major point in the tournament, the tight play can be taken advantage of by the larger stacks, which is exactly what you should do. Apply pressure as often as possible to the shorter stacks especially in late position with raises slightly under 3x the big blind. This raise will often take down the blinds, and if you are re-raised once every 4 or 5 times you raise pre-flop you will still make an overall profit.
You can also attempt a few early position raises to steal the blinds. This play will often be respected if it is made under the gun, especially by the medium sized stacks, and you may take down the blinds more often than not. Few players are willing enough to gamble their entire stack after investing this much time into a tournament to leave with no profit. Using this extremely aggressive method of play, you are forcing your opponents to wake up to a very strong hand, which odds are they will not. You may very well be able to raise over 50% of your hands if your table has been known to be very tight, so loosen up.
You may be re-raised by smaller aggressive stacks of players that are not concerned with bubbling the tournament, and in this case always consider pot odds before folding. You may be priced in depending on the stack of the re-raiser, and even with hands such as Q10, K10, Ax, you may be ahead or barely behind pre-flop.