Pay the Bubble…Or Ask for Trouble

One of the most annoying moments in tournament poker comes when you’re one away from the money and someone makes a suggestion to pay the “bubble,” the player who would otherwise finish one step from the prize pool. Maybe you have a lot of chips, or just don’t like the idea, but don’t want to be heckled and harassed, so you reluctantly go along with the suggestion. But the vote must be unanimous, and when somebody objects, an argument usually breaks out. It takes guts to be the spoiler.

Earlier this year my sweetie vetoed a proposal to pay the bubble boy in a Los Angeles-area tournament. That set off a tempest in a teapot controversy after somebody posted a surly comment on the 2+2 forum website, accusing her of taking “a ticky tack and stereotypically degenerate approach to the issue.” Well, even Mother Teresa had her critics. This post resulted in literally hundreds of responses, some agreeing with it, but the vast majority applauding Barbara for “standing her ground.” A sample of the replies:

“I’m assuming that the people berating Barbara for her decision are of the age where everyone got a trophy in little league.”

“Congratulations to Barbara for not backing down when a room full of idiots disagrees with her.”

“I would never allow the bubble to be paid, and I wouldn’t feel an ounce of remorse in doing so. It’s poker, and as a professional it’s not my job to be charitable so one extra person can get money. Calling the player in the question a bitch just because of this is insanity. Don’t play if you don’t like the original payouts.”

If everyone agrees, there are various ways to make a deal and pay off the bubble. You can give him back his buy-in, donate last-place prize money, buy him a beer, etcetera. It can come from each player’s pay-out, taken off the first-place finisher, whatever.

If someone nixes the idea, it’s usually the chip-leader. In Barbara’s case, she had only middling stacks.when she cast her “no” vote, and she would do the same even if she had only one small blind left. It’s a matter of principal and logic with her.

“If they pay 27 spots and you pay the 28th-place bubble, then that in turn makes the player who went out in 29th place the bubble,” she points out. “Why not just keep going down the line, and give everyone his buy-in back? That way everyone will cash, and we’d only lose our entry fee.”

Yes, I know how heartbreaking it is to see those pathetic souls with one chip left, tears in their eyes, desperately begging to make the money, or at least walk away with something in their pocket. Sort of like those guys who make $60,000 a year standing in traffic and holding up signs proclaiming that they’re homeless vets. I bet I could make a lot of money printing up and selling signs reading, “I’m a homeless bubble boy. Please pay me.”

Another problem with paying the bubble is that it takes away a lot of the strategy. Short stacks who are one away from the money traditionally play super-tight, inviting aggressive players with bigger stacks to steal their blinds. This inspired noted tournament director Jack McClelland to come up with a great line when action is hand-for-hand, and action at all tables must be complete before play resumes. Instead of the traditional “shuffle up and deal,” Jack calls out, “Shuffle up and steal.”

I suppose the one good thing about paying the bubble is that it speeds things up. It sometimes takes months of hand-for-hand play to eliminate the one player standing in the way of payouts. The times when I did tournament write-ups I was often tempted to pay the bubble myself just so I could get some sleep. I know the tournament staffers feel the same way, so why don’t you guys chip in and pay the bubble yourself?

Casinos handle this situation in different ways. The Venetian, for example, stops the clock during hand-for-hand, then adds two minutes (the average time it takes to play a hand) when all action is complete. This keeps the blinds from shooting up too quickly during this period of slower play.

The hand-for-hand rule (sometimes referred to as the Brent Carter rule) came about because of players who would stall and stall, shuffle their two cards for five minutes, finally pick them up to discover a deuce-seven offsuit, then stare at them like a zombie as if trying to decide what to do, hoping that in the meantime someone at another table would get knocked out.

Now, the best thing someone who objects to bubble bribery can do is to notify a tournament staffer well in advance. That way there is no vote or bickering, and the anonymous objector can avoid being pelted with tomatoes or having his or her tires slashed.

But I have an even better idea to avoid all this unnecessary turmoil. When the field is one away from the money, the tournament director, instead of announcing “hand for hand,” or, “hold up until action is completed,” would simply say, “ten-second rule.” That would mean that until everyone was in the money, play would continue normally at each table, with just one stipulation: players would have 10 seconds to act on their hands. Any longer, and the hand is dead, whether it was deuce-seven or pocket aces. No vote, no arguments on whether to pay the bubble, no stalling, no funny business, and the blinds won’t keep escalating during prolonged hand-for-hand play.

I will submit my brilliant proposal to the Tournament Directors Association, who will no doubt immediately incorporate it into the TDA rulebook.

Until then, all you sore-head bubble nits, quit picking on my sweetie. ♠

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched more than 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read ’em and Laugh.