If you're not familiar with what a bounty tournament is, here's a brief description: Remember the WANTED, dead or alive, posters from the Old West? (I know that only my dad and Barry Greenstein are old enough to actually remember the posters up on walls, but the rest of us have at least seen them in movies.) These posters offered a reward or put a "bounty" on the head of an outlaw. Well, a bounty tournament offers a reward for knocking out a specified poker player who's playing in that tournament.
That player is wanted "dead or alive," or more accurately in this case, "broke and on the rail." There is sometimes one bounty
in the entire tournament, oftentimes one at every table, and every number in between. The payment for vanquishing a bounty varies from a token gift such as a T-shirt to a hefty prize that's much larger than the tournament buy-in. Sometimes the prizes grow with the more bounties you knock out of the tournament.
These tournaments are becoming more and more popular, and from what I see, it's obvious that most players have little idea how to adjust their play to this structure, either as a normal player or as a bounty. The amount awarded for eliminating the bounty makes all the difference. If it's small, it should affect your game very little. If it's big, it may be all you should worry about. Let's compare a few of these situations.
Let's start with the lowest bounty first. Charity tourneys would probably fit this bill, at least in tournaments I play. The latest one I participated in was Vince Neil's
Off-the-Strip charity event. It was for a great cause; all of the proceeds benefit the Skylar Neil Memorial Fund and the T.J. Martell Foundation, which raise funds for research into the treatment of leukemia, cancer, and AIDS.
Besides the great cause, it was great fun. Vince is a fun guy and his wife is a charming bombshell. I was lucky enough to be asked to give them a poker lesson, and it was a great warm-up for the main event. The three of us were bounties, along with Johnny Chan, Lee Watkinson, Chip and Karina Jett, Shun Uchida, Phil Gordon, four others I can't currently think of, and my beautiful wife (who wound up taking fifth place!).
If you eliminated any of us bounties, you received a prize, such as a pair of show tickets. The tickets are nice, but with a $50,000 prize pool, they shouldn't influence your decisions too much. The way I was eliminated is a good case in point.
We were down to the last few tables, the blinds had reached a very high level (about 600-1,200), and I was a bit above average with about 9,000 or 10,000. I was one off the cutoff and looked down at K-Q offsuit. I moved in, and the big blind nearly mucked his hand before realizing I was a bounty. He then called me with A-7 offsuit.
This was a stupid play for many reasons, the most obvious being that he probably had the worst hand and was dominated. Second, besides that, if he did have the best hand, he couldn't be much of a favorite over anything I might have here - unless, of course, I was making a steal with a hand with a 7 in it, which was unlikely. Third, he had enough chips not to take a gamble with a trash hand like that. Fourth, and most important of all, when we counted our chips down,
he didn't have me covered!
If you're going to take a chance and play a trash hand with the hope of knocking out a bounty, for God's sake, make sure that you have enough chips to do so! Don't be afraid to ask for a count. If he had had 10 times the chips I had, OK, fair enough. But in this case, it just wasn't worth risking his whole stack in hope of winning some tickets worth only a few hundred dollars.
Now, if the bounty prize is bigger, that changes things. Let's look at a bigger-payout tourney. One of my favorite
World Poker Tour tournaments is Bay 101's
Shooting Star. It has a $10,000 buy-in with a $5,000 price on the head of each bounty (and there's one bounty at each table).
I still wouldn't condone that last gentleman's play in this circumstance, but it's getting closer. Now, in this circumstance, he should start to consider marginal hands that have a chance to match up well against likely hands that I might be holding (if he has me covered, that is).
Borderline hands such as A-Q, A-J, K-Q, or middle pairs all have extra value here. I still wouldn't play trash hands like the A-7 or even an ace with a kicker as high as 10. It is just too likely to be dominated and isn't worth the gamble, even with the extra gravy.
The final type of bounty is the most crazy and, in my opinion, the most fun. It's when the bounty is much larger than the buy-in. They are quite rare, and the only one I know that is currently running is on DoylesRoom.com.
The structure is a $25 buy-in, and there are at least three bounties, and sometimes as many as six or seven. The first bounty you knock out pays you $500!
If you think that's a lot for a $25 buy-in, you're right, but listen to this: If you knock out a second bounty, the next prize is $5,000! If that still doesn't raise your blood pressure, the third bounty you eliminate is worth $25,000! All for a $25 buy-in.
It's very difficult to knock out more than one, but it has happened several times in the past two years. If you are lucky enough to knock out one bounty and wind up at a table with another bounty, you obviously should take any risk that you can to knock him out. If he moves in and the two tightest players on planet Earth cold-call, you should still overcall with 7-2 offsuit. In fact, this is still usually the right play against the first bounty you encounter.
I say usually because you may find a better spot to gamble with the bounty later on. If you are the bounty and on the other end of this situation, you must play extremely cautious poker, to say the least. With hands as good as A-K, I will still usually limp and try to flop a pair before I commit all of my chips. The reason is, I just don't want to take a gamble, even when I'm a 2-to-1 favorite. If you wait and are patient, you will find spots in which your opponents are drawing dead or close to it, and will still call your all-in bet.
In the Doyle's Room tournament as a bounty, I got more than 10 times my starting chips more than 75 percent of the times I played it. Whether you're a bounty or a regular player, this tournament is more fun than a barrel of Mike Matusows!
