Rakeback Bounty Tournament Strategy
One of the newest tournament structures that is being offered by most of the online poker rooms is a bounty tournament. A bounty tournament can be played two different ways including the first way where 100% of the buy-in goes towards the bounty and the second way where 50% of the buy-in goes towards the bounty with the rest of the buy-in going towards a prize pool. You will need to decide whether or not you want to play in a PKR Rakeback tournament with a prize pool or without a prize pool. I find that the tournaments without a prize pool are better because you will win the most for knocking out opponents.
In order to win the bounty off one of the players on your table you need to knock them out of the tournament. In the tournaments without any prize pool you will find that most players will go all-in fairly often when they have a hand. The best way to win money in these tournaments is by waiting for premium hands only. If you’re dealt a high pocket pair such as A’s, K’s or Q’s then I would try to get your chips into the pot before the flop. If you have a premium drawing hand such as A/K suited then you will want to make sure that you keep the pot as low as possible until you see if you hit.
You also want to make sure that you don’t play a lot of marginal hands in the beginning of these Ultimate Bet Rakeback tournaments because it can often end up biting you in the back, down the road in the tournament. For instance, if you call a 100 chip raise preflop with a small pocket pair the first hand and then fold on the flop you’re going to have 100 less chips then everyone. This means that if you end up getting into an all-in hand with another player within the next few hands you won’t be able to knock the player out. You will have less chips then the other player and although you will double up your chips you won’t make any money because you didn’t knock out the player.
You need to always try and have more chips then most of your opponents in bounty tournaments so that you will have them covered on an all-in bet. Often when you’re one of the chip leaders you will be able to push the smaller stacks around because they won’t want to risk their tournament life unless they have a premium hand. This will allow you build up your chip stack, but more importantly it will chop away at the other player’s stacks. This will mean that when the other players do decide to make a stand they will have less chips and it will be less likely to hurt your stack if you call.
Bounty tournaments are fun for those players who like lots of action. They often don’t take that long to finish because players will usually go all-in every time they have a good hand. If you’re good at reading opponents and you aren’t scared of calling big bets then you should try playing some bounty tournaments to see how profitable they are for you.