The bubble is always a big turning point in a tournament, and players often have quite a bi-polar method of playing at this stage. One portion of the players will tighten their game up to try and make it into the money, while another takes advantage of these ‘scared’ players and use this opportunity to chip their stacks up by bullying their table. This results in a growing gap between the leaders and the short stacks, as many players see their stacks dwindle down to just a few big blinds leading up to the money. It also means that when the bubble finally bursts, the field is full of players ready to get their chips in with any two marginal cards, leading to a spree of eliminations.
Here at Playground Poker, the dealer no longer announces ‘Seat Open’ when someone has been eliminated, as this has been replaced by a light system. LED lights have been attached to the back of the dealer chairs, and when a player is eliminated, the floor is called over via a green indicator light (the red is for emergency, and the yellow is to call over the cocktail waitress). Now that the bubble has burst, we’ve been seeing green lights go off at all corners of the room, as the field has dropped by 11 players in the 15 minutes between the money bubble and the current break.
