Tournaments: The main phases (early, middle, bubble, final table)
Tournaments have distinct phases. Learn the strategy for each: early, middle, bubble, and final table.
Tournaments unfold in distinct phases, each requiring a different strategy. Understanding these phases is the foundation of tournament success.
Early Stage (Deep Stacks)
With 50+ big blinds, play like a deep-stacked cash game. Be patient, play tight, and look for set-mining and implied odds situations.
Middle Stage (Medium Stacks)
With 20-35 big blinds, aggression becomes essential. Steal blinds actively, 3-bet light, and avoid marginal calls that bleed chips.
Bubble
The bubble is where the most money is made. Short stacks tighten up, giving big stacks enormous leverage to steal. Use ICM pressure aggressively.
Final Table
Pay jumps create extreme ICM pressure. Adjust by targeting medium stacks, avoiding confrontations with big stacks, and looking for laddering opportunities.
The One Key Principle
In each phase, ask: what’s my effective stack in big blinds, and what strategy does that dictate? Stack size, not cards, drives tournament decisions.
Early Mistakes to Avoid
Playing too loose early (the value of chips changes over time)
Critère
Strategy + mindset
Typical mistake to avoid
Early game (50+ BB)
Patient, set-mining, technical postflop — Mindset: build a solid base
Too loose (chips are cheap to lose, but winning them changes little)
Middle game (25-50 BB)
Steal, light 3-bet, selective aggression — Mindset: accumulate now
Too passive (lets blinds eat away at your stack)
Late game (15-25 BB)
Push/fold, exploit fold equity — Mindset: choose your spots
Open-folding with a short stack (loses fold equity by not shoving)
Bubble (10-20 BB for short stacks)
Bully the tight players, avoid big stacks — Mindset: max ICM pressure
Calling too wide vs shoves (equity vs ICM cost)
Final table
Target mediums, ladder the pay jumps — Mindset: maximize monetary EV
Crashing your stack vs a big stack when you could ladder
Complete cheat-sheet of the 5 phases: for each stack tier, the key strategy, the classic mistake to avoid, and the mindset to adopt. Instantly recognizing your phase = adopting the right approach without hesitation.
Early: OK / Bubble: avoid at all costs / FT: avoid vs big stacks
ICM pressure is THE central concept of tournaments: the same play can be +EV in early and -EV at the bubble. The deeper you go, the more preserving your stack is worth — and the more exploiting others becomes lucrative.
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À retenir
1Early: play tight, set-mine, avoid marginal spots with deep stacks.
2Bubble: big stacks have massive leverage — steal aggressively, exploit short stack fear.
3Final table: pay jumps create ICM pressure — target medium stacks, avoid big stack clashes.
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