Obtaining the Best Finish in a Tournament

If you are a player who regularly – let’s say one in five times – finishes in the lower payout area of the bubble in a poker tournament, it might be time to rethink your strategy later in the game. Obviously you are doing many things right to obtain that position, but in order to make your tournament play more rewarding, there might be a small adjustment you could make.

Typically, a high volume, low stakes tournament on one of the major poker web sites will attract five to six thousand players, with payouts going to the top seven to eight hundred places. As far as many players are concerned, finishing in the top 10% of the field is a fantastic achievement, however, for that three or four hours of work, you may have only won a dollar or two. If you were to finish on the top table just one time in twenty, you would make more money in that one game than all your bubble placings combined!

Usually what happens as the bubble approaches, is that all the short-stacked players tighten up – clinging onto their last few chips to ensure that they finish in one of those “valuable” places. Once they have made it, the dynamics of the game changes and these players transform into the loosest opponents you have ever seen – betting on anything and everything. Because they have already made their couple of dollars, and are more than likely to be blinded out in the next few hands, they really they have nothing to lose.  If they win with their marginal hands, that is great because it gives them a chance to be more competitive in the tournament and elevate their finishing position, but for most players it is a bonus if they get anything more out of the game than what they have already achieved.

What you should be considering is jumping the gun before the bubble. Start your aggressiveness while other players are tightening up, and take advantage of their reluctance to play even their premium hands. You will probably bust out more often than you are successful using this technique, but the times that it works for you, will enable you to leapfrog hundreds of players waiting to pick up their small winnings and give you a realistic chance of a final table finish.

Although this technique is recommended for the high volume, low stake games, as you become a more accomplished player, and your bankroll decrees that you should go up a level or two, you will find that the more valuable a tournament, the fewer risks players are willing to take just outside the bubble, and the more opportunities become available to you.

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