19.3.07

Bubble Boiling

Turns out saturday's tournament at the river rock was sold out by the time I had planned to satellite on Friday. So I guess you could say I saved myself some money...? Who knows what would have been, but I guess I'll be a bit more proactive next time and plan accordingly. I anticipated meeting up with Fuel but it didn't work out.

I ended up playing in a live tourney today and bubbled... I should have known when I picked up pocket aces on the first hand and doubled up. I limped UTG, raise from the button (pocket tens), I reraise another 200 chips (starting stack of 1500) and he comes over the top all in... I insta-call double up... and proceed to get zero cards, for the most part, for the rest of the day. I had kings about 30 minutes later and didn't get any action. There were only 22 players and they paid to 4 spots. I really think I need to figure out what I am doing wrong when I get to the final table. Maybe today just wasn't my day... but I think I need to look a bit deeper than that considering the ongoing frequency in which this has taken place over the last 60 days. I guess this could be directly related to the increased amount of poker that I have been playing in that same time span, but something else tells me that it just means that my game is growing and I need to recognize and work on the areas that need help. Spcecifically, bubble play.

I got home and proceeded to bubble in a 18 person Tier 2 token tourney (finished 7th). Then played in a 9 player SnG and came 4th. Bubble bullshit.

Time to figure some stuff out although I'm really not sure where to begin. I guess I could read a bit more, and play less. I'll probably just stick to the odd blogger tourney and go from there.
random thoughts by on

4 comments:

lightning36 said...

One of the few good bubbles: http://www.lovemybubbles.com/

9:23 PM
Alan aka RecessRampage said...

I'm sure you've read it but Lucko21 had a good post about bubble play. It's the ATC (any two cards) concept. I just can't do it the way he does but the other night, I played in a WSOP satellite and even though I ended up in 8th place (paid top 2) out of 171, I did witness and to a certain extent exercised the bubble play. There were times when I could actually pick on the medium stacks instead of the short stacks easier because they didn't want to bubble. Short stacks I think sometimes has the mentality of "ok, I'm short so I'm just gonna take my chances." But if you have a decent stack size (I was 3rd or 4th in chips), you can really attack the other big stacks because they don't want to tussle with you. So, while they pick on the short stacks, I tended to pick on them by reraising when I have position, etc or when they raise my blinds. Very difficult to commit, esp if there's a short stack alive because everyone is at that point, waiting for the short stack to bust out. I'm not saying I mastered this concept but just something to think about. Good luck, and like you said, the positive is that you are getting that far quite often!

7:37 PM
Pokerwolf said...

Please write a post about your bubble play. It'll help you figure out what's wrong and what you need to fix.

4:27 PM
Schaubs said...

Ok, I'll work on something and post it when I have a new experience to reflect on. I'll also review some of my hand histories and focus on the bubble. Thanks Wolf.

4:31 PM

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