How to Change Your Game for a Bounty Tournament

Let’s take a look at how we might adjust our tournament strategy when bounties are available. Bounties are offered to encourage more action than what you would expect to see in a standard tournament and it certainly works. It is therefore a good idea to learn how to effectively play bounty tournaments because they are becoming increasingly common in online poker. There are also plenty of opportunities for profit if you approach them in the right way.

A bounty or knockout poker tournament is the same as a normal tournament but with one significant twist, instead of merely gaining your opponents' tournament chips when you bust them, you get an additional reward.

This structure is popular with new players because even if you bust out of the tournament early, you do not leave empty-handed provided you busted a few players along the way. Even if you do not cash, score three or four busts and you still could leave with a profit! So the bounties are worth chasing and it is not difficult to see why the action at the tables intensifies when they are available.

Before you play, review how much of the prizepool goes towards bounties. For some tournaments, like K.O. Poker on PokerStars, half of the total prizepool goes towards the bounties. In other tournaments, only 20% goes towards the pool for bounties and everything in between. That is, unless they start playing 100% bounty tournaments, which is a novel concept that I suppose could happen at some point.

Players are more likely to gamble with speculative holdings because they can win between 20% and 50% of an opponent's tournament buy-in if they bust them. This makes every player with a stack size that can be attacked a juicy target but it also means players make some uncharacteristic errors chasing busts. Play will be looser than in normal tournaments which means more tough spots, more beats, and more opportunities to cash in, literally, with your big hands. Be prepared for action because you won’t be disappointed.

In normal poker tournaments, amateurs will find it difficult to cash, but in bounty tournaments if they come out swinging, they have a decent chance at winning their buy-in even if their tournament life is short-lived. As a seasoned player with a good grasp of poker tournament strategy, you can adjust and take advantage of the errors this inevitably leads to the amateur making. They can forget that when it looks like a fold they should fold. The promise of “cashing without cashing” does lead to a few more weaker players than normal and a whole lot more gambling. This can add easy chips to your stack.

Short stacks are not merely short stacks, they are seen as readymade bounties and players will be focused on getting the bounty for themselves. You should be too. You will see far more players hanging around in pots and far more callers when short stacks choose to enter a hand. It can feel like a feeding frenzy.

They will be distracted by the mere fact that a short stack is ready to play. Knowing this, a little tightening up could see you pick up a healthy amount of cash and chips in a vulnerable 3-way pot.

As gentlemen and gentlewomen of poker, if there is an all-in and two stacks remain in the hand, it is common for players to check the hand down to showdown in the hope one player busts the player who is all-in. Don’t expect this courtesy when there is a bounty at stake as the bounty is not shared.

Reading around the forums, the loss of “checking a hand down” is said to be one of the nuances of normal tournaments that simply does not exist in bounty tournaments. Instead think every hand as though Victor Blom, the infamous Isildur1 from Sweden, was at your table. As one of the most unpredictable LAG players ever to grace the felt, Blom would be the type to snipe a pot like this given a only a moment's opportunity.

When a few of your own plays go wrong and you are a short stack, you may feel like someone is watching you. You would be right. You are a target so you must bear this in mind when you are thinking of shoving all-in to steal the blinds. Players will call with weaker hands more often even if Pokersnowie and other tools might question their play. Obviously we cannot be too tight, and if it is correct to shove when you have a hand strong you should do so, but be prepared for some beats and some disappointments.

Once you are a short stack, however, if you get some hands, you can expect to be paid off.   They almost don’t care sometimes. Whether you shove or bet, expect action. This is a good thing as getting action and winning chips is the only way you can rebound and win.

I appreciate this is like saying “try not to bust”, but what I mean by this is to try and keep a stack where you can put your opponent all-in if possible by the end of the hand. You should mimic your opponents by staying aggressive and never feeling safe enough that you sit back for too long waiting for big hands and allow your stack size to dwindle. Keep on pumping as there is always enough action to keep adding to your stack.

The introduction of bounty tournaments means action, action, action. It is not for the faint hearted. Even if you bust early, you can still make money if you have busted a few opponents. Providing you make some adjustments and note what the key differences playing in a bounty tournaments means for you, you will be ready to dive right in. And believe me, it really is fun.