Bounty poker tournaments started growing in popularity when the big online poker rooms started offering them in their poker rooms. Since then bounty poker tournaments have been appearing in many of the major live poker events around the world and it seems like this tournament is going to be around for awhile. If you’ve never played in a bounty poker tournament we’re going to quickly describe how to play them below.
What is a Bounty Tournament?
A bounty pkr poker tournament is the same as any regular poker tournaments except for one small difference. In this type of poker tournament part of your buy-in will go towards the prize pool and the rest of your buy-in will go towards your bounty. Every single player will have the same bounty and the goal is to knock out players. If you knock a player out of the tournament you’ll automatically win their bounty and it will be credited to your account immediately after knocking the player out.
Bounty Tournament Strategy
* Since you earn money for knocking out other players in the tournament you need to be willing to make the big play when it comes time. A lot of players don’t like risking their chips before the flop, but in this type of tournament a lot of the hands will be all-in preflop. Many of the players that compete in bounty poker tournaments like to gamble and that’s why they play this style of tournament.
* You want to try and make sure that you get an early start in these tournaments so that you have more chips then the other players on your table. The reason this is important in a bounty poker tournament is simple. If you were to be in an all-in hand with another player and they have 100 more chips then you, you won’t be able to knock them out of the tournament if you win the hand. You might gain some chips, but you won’t receive the bounty since you didn’t knock the player out of the tournament.
* Since there is still a large prize pool to be won in most cases for the players and finish at the top of the tournament you want to begin to play carefully near the bubble. In the early stages of the tournament you should try to win some bounties, but as you near the bubble you should start playing for the prize pool rather then the bounties. Most players will still be chasing bounties so it’ll allow you to move up the leaderboard at a quick pace even if you aren’t playing many hands.
* One other thing that is also really important in bounty poker tournaments is keeping your emotions in check. I have lost many of these tournaments on some of the worst bad beats possible, but that is the risk you take by gambling in these types of tournaments. You’ll win a large percentage of the time when you have the best hand, but at the same time be prepared to take some bad beats.