Posted by Beck @ Steal The Blinds
I’ve been playing a fair number of low-stakes ($10+1 - $20+2) SNGs lately, and have been meeting with a great deal of success. I can safely attribute much of that success to many of the great posts on SNG play written by other bloggers out there. As such, I wanted to give something back, but couldn’t really think of a topic that hadn’t been covered. Then I hit on the idea of discussing specifically 4 handed play (i.e. when the original 9 or 10 players have dwindled to 4, with only the final 3 being paid) not as in SNGs which start out with only 4 players). That’s where I feel my game is at its strongest, and If I last that long, I routinely go from 3rd-4th place to 1st-2nd place by the time the bubble pops.

Play on the bubble in any tournament, obviously, is a very different dynamic from play at any other point. Everyone is terrified of getting knocked out one off the money, and there are substantial advantages to be gained as a consequence of the simple fact that your opponents are cognizant of the potential to merely fold their way into the money. The last thing they want to do is take a risk which could knock them out in 4th after having spent close to an hour slogging it out in the trenches of a one table war.

The way to take advantage of this timidity is to…. read rest of article at Steal The Blinds