During the middle and late stages of a tournament, the importance of stack sizes increases, making it crucial to remain aware at all times of how much your opponents have in chips and how their stacks compare to yours. Especially as the bubble approaches, you need to be wary of opponents whose stacks closely resemble or are larger than yours, as they are the potential opponents who can cause you the most damage.
A hand that happened in the bubble of EPT Deauville High Roller from 2014 illustrates the importance of staying aware of other players' stack sizes, as well as teaching a valuable lesson about selecting the right targets to pressure. In fact, what the hand really shows is an example of a player who may have chosen too carefully. wrong who to press.
The event had an agonizing bubble period. Out of 115 entries, only the top 17 were paid. Then, when the remaining 18 players were left, the hands were played hand-for-hand. As it turned out, it was over two hours before the next elimination occurred and the bubble finally burst.
Hand – EPT Deauville High Roller Bubble
The blinds were 4,000/8,000 with an antes of 1,000. The table folded to Dominik Panka who raised to 16,000, Ramin Hajiyey re-raised to 41,000 from the small blind and then Michael Tureniec 4-bet all in for a total of 301,000 chips from the big blind.
With the action back to Panka, he announced that he would reraise all in for slightly less than Tureniec had from the button, Hajiyey from the small blind called for his tournament life. Here are the hands:
Panka: :As :Ah
Hajiyev: :Kc :Kh
Tureniec: :Ad :Qc
The board came :7s :Jh :Jc :7c :4d and made Panka's aces hold his favoritism, giving him a boost to the later stages of the tournament which he would go on to win the following day. Meanwhile, Hajiyey was eliminated on the bubble and Tureniec was left with just 37,000 chips, just over 4 big blinds.
While for Hajiyey the hand was obviously a cooler, other considerations can be made regarding the way Tureniec played, and a possible error.
To start the hand, Panka opened with a standard min-raise from the button. Hajiyey, with the smallest stack of the three players, 3-bet out of position from the small blind. Knowing each player's hands, the reasoning behind their moves is obvious. Almost without exception, you tend to raise and re-raise preflop with pocket aces and pocket kings, which are the two best hands in hold'em.
The action then came down to Tureniec with AQo and a stack of about 37 big blinds. Although Tureniec had a bigger stack than both of his opponents and could not be eliminated during this hand, the difference between him and Panka was just over 4 big blinds, and Hajiyey was only 6 big blinds. This meant that if he went all in and lost, he would be severely weakened in the tournament, and if Hajiyey were to win, Tureniec would most likely be on the bubble.
Standard play during the bubble dictates that you should put more pressure on short-stacked players, who are more likely to be afraid of being bust on the bubble. That said, in a situation like this where all players have similar stack sizes, the idea of risking your chips on a marginal hand pre-flop becomes less profitable.
But is AQo “marginal”? It’s certainly a strong hand to start with a raise if the table folds to you. However, when facing a raise and a reraise before it’s your turn to act, it becomes more difficult to play with this hand – especially from the big blind and against two opponents who have similar stack sizes to you.
In short, during the bubble, pressure should be placed on the players with the shortest stacks at the table. These stacks are the ones most likely to call you off by putting them in an all-in situation, as it forces them to make a decision about their tournament life. If you have a stack like Tureniec for example, where you hold around 37 healthy big blinds, choosing a short-stacked player as your opponent is also associated with taking less risk, as even if you lose the hand you will still have a respectable amount of chips.
Tureniec, however, chose to apply preflop pressure on players who were very close in chip count to him, and as it turned out, both players had premium hands that left Tureniec hoping for a miracle to save his :Ad :Qc .
However, in this specific example, Tureniec was lucky enough for both players to have big hands. and so that Panka could dominate Hajiyey with his aces against kings. This led to Hajiyey's elimination and the bubble bursting, allowing Tureniec to still finish in the money. However, in many other cases, if only one of the other two players had a better hand and made Tureniec lose, he would have been left with a dangerously small stack, and most likely would have been the one to burst the bubble.
Tureniec did indeed bust shortly after the bubble burst, in 17th place, taking home €18,000 for his €10,300 buy-in. Had he opted not to play such a large pot preflop with players of similar stacks, he would have had the chance to build his stack to a level that would have taken him further in the tournament and into the money.
Translated and adapted from: Picking Appropriate Targets to Pressure on a Tournament Bubble
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