Rants & Raves: The Bubble Save

One night last week at the Peppermill, I played $15/$30 Limit instead of the $45 donkament. (+$177 2.5 hrs, in case you were wondering). The Peppermill is adding $300 to some of their tournaments, so this one had a good crowd of 41 players. But for some bizarre reason, they paid out nine spots for a 41 player field. 

I say this because the Final Table for the donkament was right behind my table, which started out with ten players. As soon as everyone sat down, most of the players wanted to do a Bubble Save, which is giving the 10th place their buy-in back by adjusting the payouts. There was one girl at the table who had a decent stack, and said "No". She said it was bad enough they were paying nine players in a 41 player tournament, and paying one more would be stupid. Others jumped all over here, saying it wasn't fair that one of them wouldn't get any money, and she was being greedy. Eventually, the TD came over, and stopped the Bubble Save talk.

I've mentioned in the past that I don't do Bubble Saves anymore, so I've been in her position before, as old geezers have jumped all over me for being greedy. I would have said, "I vote that we pay five players, as that's what a 41 player tournament should play."

There are a couple of reasons I hate the Bubble Save. First, some players have said the Bubble should get pair because it's not fair that they miss out on the money. To me, this is stupid for one simple reason; someone has to be a Bubble. In the example above, if they gave the 10th place some money, then whomever finished in 11th is now the Bubble. Is it fair that they missed out on the money, and should they now get some? The nature of tournaments is that a few players get paid, and many more don't. That is not a concept that allows for "fair".

The other reason is that being so close to the money affects how the people play. Personally, I don't care if I cash or not. I play in many tournaments, and how I do in one particular tourney isn't important to me. But to other players, it's very important that they get something. And I want to take full advantage of players who are trying to fold their way to the money.

Now this doesn't mean that I don't make deals at a Final Table. A Heads-Up chop is common when both of us are close in chips, and it's a quick structure. However, I have no interest in doing a four or five way chop, because I would rather knock out a couple of players in order to get a bigger chunk of money.

Surprisingly, I am actively pursuing a deal when I have the Tower Of Power working, which means I have the massive chip lead over the rest of the table. I'm interested in making a deal because I want to lock up my equity before I run into a bad River card and then lose a coin flip to put my chip advantage in jeopardy. It's sort of like using the doubling cube in backgammon. Here are two previous examples of me trying to make a deal with the Tower Of Power, one worked out but the other one didn't.

When I try to make a deal as the Tower Of Power, I usually end up trying to get close to 1st place money, while giving up just a little to sweeten the deal for the other players. I have discovered that the best time for me to make a deal is with three players left. When it's four or five players left, the other players don't get enough money, and would rather play it out. When it gets Heads-Up, then the other guy wants an even chop, or a bigger chunk than I'm willing to give up, since he's so close to 1st place. With three players left, the other two players are waiting to see who gets stuck with 3rd place money. By taking a little off of 1st place and having them chop the rest of the money, they both get an amount that is close to 2nd place, and they are usually happy with that.