While regular columnist Nick Eastwood takes a much-deserved break, his 888poker Stream Team colleague Ian Simpson has kindly stepped in to spread some wisdom gleaned from his years in the game. This week Ian shares some strategy advice to bear in mind when playing bounty tournaments...
Tournaments that reward a bounty for knocking out your opponent have drastically different strategies to vanilla tournaments. The last six months of my life had a lot of live poker in it and since most live festivals only include a small number of bounty events, I purposefully neglected bounty study in favour of sharpening my vanilla skill set.
However, with a planned stint at home to enjoy the run up to Christmas with the family, that means my volume will be all online, and bounty events will be making up a significant portion of my volume. Best hit the proverbial books to maximise my win rate.
I’ve compiled three tips below that will help you increase your win rate in bounty tournaments. There will be exceptions to these rules for sure, so keep that in mind before blindly applying these tips.
Keeping a close eye on the stacks left to act
When facing a raise, look at the players behind you. If your opponents left to act are covered by you we do more calling and less 3-betting. We can’t win their bounty if we 3-bet and they fold (which they’ll be forced to do at a high frequency). If we flat call, we play more pots against them and we can win their bounty.
If the players behind have 20bbs or less, especially if the big blind is on 20bb or less, we flat more of our range. That means just calling with A-A, A-K and similar powerhouses to a degree, to balance this range. Stacks at this depth are relatively easy to get into the middle post-flop over one or two streets, hence the tendency to not 3-bet preflop and let our opponents behind into the pot - along with their bounties.
However, if the big blind covers us it sucks to let them realise their equity. And given it is a PKO, that means they will defend their big blind even wider than normal. Even if some stacks behind are covered by us, in the instance where the big blind is the biggest stack it is often better to deny equity to the big blind by having a normal or even larger 3-betting range, preventing them overcalling with 8-5 offsuit and the like.
ICM vs the bounty factor
ICM, or The Independent Chip Model, tells us that our tournament life is a precious thing, and that not busting a tournament has a $ value attached to it. However, in bounty tournaments being cavalier with your chips to win the $ attached to your opponent is also worth money.
These two forces are polar opposites and both fluctuate throughout the tournament. Early in an event, ICM is minimal since we are so far away from the money, so the bounty factor is much more important. Closer to the money, or on a final table, ICM pressure is at its highest and is often more powerful than the bounty factor.
However, in Progressive Knock Out events and in Mystery Bounty tournaments, the bounty factor is not consistent. If you’re on the bubble and a micro-stack goes all in with a big progressive bounty on their head, that will counter some of the ICM pressure you might be under. Similarly, in a Mystery Bounty event, if the biggest prize has yet to be revealed then the bounty factor remains high and you need to adjust your ranges accordingly.
The most fun you get to have is on the bubble as the covering stack in a bounty event. Your opponents have to worry about busting the event close to the money, whilst you get compensated for playing super wide ranges because of the implied odds of their bounties you can win.
There are times you can play more than half your range from the hijack. The widest range I can find playing around with GTOWizard examples on the bubble of a PKO is 76.4%. The sheer joy of opening Q-3 offsuit without being yelled at by your backer!
Ticket bro?
If you frequent the 888poker Stream Team’s Twitch channels you might find yourself on the receiving end of a juicy giveaway in the form of a free ticket. Or maybe you enjoy the satellite grind and find yourself with a $109 ticket to invest. If these tickets are way above your normal average buy-in then you’ll find yourself with the fun proposition of picking the best tournament for it.
In these situations I often recommend people to invest in a PKO event. Your investment is split into two portions: the bounty prize pool and the regular prize pool. That way, if you eliminate an opponent early on, you are quickly in profit for your efforts.
In a vanilla tournament or a Mystery Bounty tournament, you wont have access to the prize pools until hours into the events. In a PKO you can turn a free or cheap ticket into profit early just by eliminating one opponent.
In closing, whether it be a Mystery or Progressive bounty tournament, adapting your play style to maximise your EV is essential. If you are only just realising just how drastically different these formats are compared to vanilla tournaments, you might want to consider reducing your table count while you apply your new ranges to your game. You’ll sacrifice a little volume, but in return get some good reps in and apply them more precisely in these formats that can be tricky even for the most seasoned of pros.
Good luck!
Follow Ian on X, Instagram and on his Twitch channel
Nick Eastwood is away.
Additional images courtesy of 888poker/Gema Cristobal
