Bubble Action
This year’s World Series of Poker provided an illuminating example of just how the approaching bubble influences players’ actions. Anyone with a small sized stack is going to tighten up and sit back, hoping for someone else to burst the bubble - the last player out before all the others get paid. It is always painful to bubble in an Everest Poker tournament. You play your best poker online for an extended period of time, then get knocked out just short of the money.
At this year’s Main Event, the bubble hit when 748 players remained. Ten percent - 747 — of the total entries get paid. Big stacks tend to exploit the tight trend and this year’s bubble was full of that kind of action. At one point, a player with a somewhat short stack raised from the button, and the big stack shoved all in. The original raiser had to make an agonizing decision for his stack and his WSOP Main Event. After deliberating awhile, he turned over his pocket Aces and threw them into the muck.
The bubble finally was broken by player Tim MacDonald whose 67,000 chips made him a short stack. He woke up with pocket Queens. He re-raised another player and the flop came A-A-2. The initial raiser checked the flop, so MacDonald shoved in the rest of his chips to find he was way behind his opponent who had flopped a full house with A-2.
Though MacDonald was awarded a free entry to next year’s Main Event, that must have been small consolation as a giant cheer went up all over the room as the remaining poker online players knew they were in the money and would get paid prize money nearly twice the $10,000 entry fee or more.
