Bubble

The threshold of a tournament's paid places

Definition

The bubble is the moment in a tournament when only one elimination remains before the money: the next player out leaves with nothing, everyone after them cashes. It's the tournament's point of maximum tension — and the moment when ICM theory produces its most violent effects. On the bubble, survival value explodes: losing your stack costs far more than doubling it would gain (in real money, not chips). The strategic consequences are mechanical: medium and short stacks must tighten up drastically — folding very strong hands becomes correct — while big stacks, whom nobody can eliminate, can attack almost unopposed. It's tournament poker's most counter-intuitive inversion: the same hand, at the same stack, plays differently depending on who holds it. Playing the bubble well requires knowing who covers whom: a medium stack facing a shove from a stack that covers it is in the worst possible spot; the same stack facing a short it covers can widen its calls. Once the bubble bursts, the dynamic flips at once: the shorts, freed, jam very wide to rebuild — you must widen your calls accordingly.