Paul Sexton Talks About Beating the Bubble

Filed in archive Poker Strategies on October 27, 2007

20 players to go, 18 pay, and I'm sitting on an average stack late in a small multi-table tournament. Dealt A8o on the button, a very aggressive player with an extreme short stack goes all-in for a smallish amount. The play is folded around to you do you isolate, call, or let someone else with the honor of trying to knock him out by folding possibly losing some very easy chips to pick up at this stage.

And when you bubble out of the tourney when the small blind wakes up with Kings, do your decision to be aggressive on the bubble despite having a stack that was in no danger of being blinded off?

Another factor would be my recent streak of losses at the cash games as well as non-cashes in tournaments. Do you let the possibility of a smallish cash and a little light at the end of the tunnel, fog the quest for the win (which included a shot at a trip to the Aussie Millions).

Paul Sexton spins his thoughts about playing on the bubble with a couple of different scenarios for Full Tilt's "Tips From the Pros". For the entire article, follow the link, here's the part where missed out on a World Series of Poker cash by going for the win:

I had just bubbled in the $2,000 Seven-Card Stud Tournament at the World Series of Poker*. I had a drawing hand and I ended up losing all my chips, which was a big mistake. I was embarrassed. I was talking to my Dad - Full Tilt Poker pro, Keith Sexton - and I said, "I can't believe how unlucky I got." He disagreed, and said my play was just incredibly stupid in regard to money and chip management, based on where I stood in the tournament. He was right.

People say, "You're not playing to get into the money - you're playing to win," but when you make the money, you go from zero dollars to double your buy-in. The biggest jump in money outside of making it to the final table is getting into the money. I didn't really understand that. Winning the hand that I busted on wasn't important in the grand scheme of things.