We recommend all readers take the free 30 day trial of SNG Wizard to use in conjunction with the strategy you will find here. This is one of the most popular tools for bubble play. You use it between playing sessions to analyze your game – the software automatically highlights those hands where your play was not optimal. As you can imagine this improves your profits each time you use it, by plugging your own leaks and making you more aware of mistakes your opponents are making.
Once you have mastered the basics of bubble strategy, we recommend that you go on to learn how to use the ‘Independent Chip Model’ (ICM) to help with your decisions. Even players who do not wish to use the mathematical approach themselves can benefit from this, by better understanding the thought processes of many opponents who will be using this. ICM works by calculating whether a decision is good in terms of the effect of average equity in the prize pool before and after the decision when run 1000’s of times. Using this for your bubble decisions will literally transform your game, whatever level you play at.
Lastly, good bubble play requires that you assess the hands your opponents will be raising and calling with. The more accurately you can assess their hand ranges, the better decisions you can make on how to play back profitably. We have several articles in this section on putting opponents on ranges and recommend that you start to ask yourself ‘what kind of hands would my opponent do that with?’ each time you play. This will get easier over time, and you will be surprised how easily it can improve your profits!
