Folding Big Hands On The Bubble In SNG’s

April 5th, 2010

In all poker tournaments, the mindset of the competing players shifts just before the pay out seats are reached. This is called the bubble and in a SNG tournament then the bubble would be reached if there are three places being paid but there are four players left. Whenever you reach this stage then the tendency is to tighten up and play narrower ranges and wait until someone gets knocked out so you can coast into the money.

In reality though your stack can get seriously eroded during these stages and especially during SNG’s where with only four players remaining the blinds and ante’s are coming thick and fast. Often at this delicate and crucial stage of the game, it is often correct to fold some big hands. This is done for strategic reasons of which I will go into shortly.

Let us look at an example to show exactly what I mean. You are in the big blind with a 5500 stack and have Ah-Kh. The UTG player who also has a 5500 stack shoves all-in when the blinds are 300-600. The other two players only have stacks of 1000 each and are almost all-in.

This isn’t just a situation where folding is correct but I would also fold with hands like J-J and even Q-Q as well. This may stagger many players but it is certainly the correct decision. The reason behind this lies in the amount of equity that you have in the prize pool before this hand and after it. Winning the all-in confrontation and losing will obviously reduce your total equity in the prize pool to zero as you will be eliminated from the competition.

But if you won this hand then the entire total of your opponent’s equity is not passed to you but divided between you and the other two players. This is because no matter how many chips you win, you cannot get more than 50% of the prize pool. At this moment in time neither of the two short stacks is guaranteed to make the money but they will be guaranteed if one of the two big stacks gets knocked out.

So the extra equity that they gain comes from the losing player. What this means is that someone in your position stands to lose far more than they gain by getting involved here with a strong hand and losing. You must be capable of strategic thinking in poker tournaments because it is often a mistake to play your hand strength and nothing else. It is always better to have two ways to win a pot in poker, either by getting your opponent to fold or by winning the pot in a showdown.

Being aggressive gives you that extra option but in this instance, you have no fold equity as you are the caller and not the aggressor so you are forced into winning the hand at showdown and that is the big difference.

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