Poker tournaments are considered the most profitable of all poker games because the players get a huge overlay. Let’s take an example here. Suppose 180 players have taken part in a tourney. Of these, 100 players are playing the tournament to win, while the remaining 80 players are playing to finish in the money and are not competing for the top prize. These remaining players do play to accumulate chips in the early stages of the tournament. Likewise, the players who are on the bubble usually fold many hands and ship out loads of money on the poker table.

This is a stage when you need to be in a position where you can win as value hands in order to stack up chips for later stages of the tournament. Following are some tips to enhance your bubble in live poker tournaments in India:

You should raise more often, and should never raise from the button and under the gun position because you will end up winning the game without the showdown.

You should target the weak players and should open with a raise keeping in mind your hole cards, position on the table and which player is in the blind. Moreover, you should pay attention on players before the bubble begins and keep track of players who are not safeguarding blinds or making big toss ups.

You should measure the competition, that is, you should focus on players who are playing to win and not on those who are playing to cash. Player playing to win the tournament are your key opponents, and adapt your play accordingly.

You should preserve your blinds, and should rarely bet out of your blind because aggressive players will either bet minimum or fold their hands. Furthermore, your opponents will prefer moving out of hands even when holding strong hands if faced with possibility of bubbling out.

You should be the one to make the last bet on the table. At this stage, there are a lot of players who are not holding strong hands and are playing to see the flop. Basically, their plans are to get reasonable showdown and play off your small stack. Thus, you should plan your bet in such a manner that when you go All-in, it becomes difficult for your opponents to bet with a marginal hand.

So the next time, you go to any poker room in India, have a look around the room and identify the players before you start applying these strategies. This will help you in playing poker in Bangalore or Goa.