During the middle and final stages of a tournament, the importance of stack size increases, making it crucial to remain aware at all times of how much your opponents have in chips and how their stack compares to yours. Especially as the bubble approaches, you need to be wary of opponents whose stacks are very similar to or larger than yours, as they are the potential opponents who can cause you a lot of damage.
A hand that happened in the EPT Deauville High Roller from 2014 illustrates the importance of remaining aware of the size of other players' stacks, as well as teaching a valuable lesson about selecting the right targets to press. In fact, what the hand really shows is an example of a player who may have chosen the right way. wrong who to press.
The event had an agonizing bubble period. Of the 115 entries, only the top 17 were paid. Then, with 18 players remaining, the hands were played hand-for-hand. As it turned out, it was more than 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 1,000 antes. The table folded around 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 on Panka, he announced that he would re-raise all in for just under what Tureniec had from the button, Hajiyey, from the small blind, paid 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 for the final stages of the tournament that he would go on to win the next day. Meanwhile, Hajiyey was eliminated on the bubble and Tureniec was left with just 37,000 chips, a little more than 4 big blinds.
While for Hajiyey the hand was obviously a cooler, other considerations can be made about Tureniec's way of playing, and a possible mistake.
To start the hand Panka opened with a standard mini-raise from the button. Hajiyey, with the smallest stack of the three players, 3-bet out of position from the small blind. Knowing the hands of each player, the reasoning behind the moves is obvious. Almost without exception, you always tend to raise and re-raise before the flop with a pair of aces and a pair of kings, which are the two best hands in hold'em.
The action then came down to Tureniec with AQo and a stack of around 37 big blinds. Although Tureniec had a bigger stack than both of his opponents and couldn't be eliminated during this hand, his gap to Panka was just over 4 big blinds, and to Hajiyey it was only 6 big blinds. This means that if he went all in and lost, he would be very weak in the tournament, and if Hajiyey took the hand, Tureniec would most likely be the tournament bubble.
Standard play during the bubble says that you should put more pressure on short-stack players, who are more likely to be afraid of being eliminated in the bubble. That said, in a situation like this where all the players have similar stack sizes, the idea of risking your chips with a marginal hand before the flop becomes less profitable.
But is AQo "marginal"? It's certainly a strong hand to start with if the table folds to you. However, when you face a raise and a re-raise before your turn, it becomes more complicated to play with this hand - especially from the big blind and against two opponents who have stack sizes similar to yours.
In short, during the bubble the pressure should be put on the players with the smallest stacks at the table. These stacks are the ones most likely to pay off when you put them all in, as this forces them to make a decision about their tournament life. If you have a stack like Tureniec's, for example, where you hold around 37 healthy big blinds, choosing a short-stack player as an opponent is also related to taking less risk, since even if you lose the hand you'll still have a respectable amount of chips.
Tureniec, however, chose to apply pre-flop pressure to players who had a chip stack very close to his, and as it turned out, both players had premium hands that meant Tureniec was just waiting for a miracle to save his :Ad :Qc .
However, in this particular example, Tureniec was lucky enough for both players to have great hands e for Panka to dominate Hajiyey with his aces against kings. This led to Hajiyey's elimination and the bursting of the bubble, allowing Tureniec to still finish ITM. However, in many other cases, if just one of the other two players had a better hand and caused Tureniec to lose, he would have been left with a dangerously small stack, and, in all likelihood, he would have been the one to burst the bubble.
Tureniec was actually eliminated shortly after the bubble burst, in 17th place, taking home €18,000 for his €10,300 buy-in investment. If he had chosen not to play such a big pot before the flop, with players with similar stacks, he would have had the chance to increase his stack in a way that would have taken him even further in the tournament and in the prize pools.
Translated and adapted from: Picking Appropriate Targets to Pressure on a Tournament Bubble
English 
Português do Brasil 
Español 