The Longest Mile

One of the hardest things I face in tourneys is the impending bubble. I really am split about what to do when I have a marginal stack and the bubble is approaching. For instance last night. I have 7K in chips and the bubble is fast approaching. What do I do? Should I hold out for the bubble. The blinds are 600/1200 and going up. There are ten left until the bubble. Any hand I play hard I am all in for. I have been playing this O8 tourney for two hours. So is it better to double my money by making the bubble or should I get aggressive and try and double up or bust?

Last night I chose to make the money. I did make a move against a small stack and lost about 3K. I was way ahead until he rivered a straight. He called my all in with AQJ6.. I was wayyyy ahead with my pair until the straight. I also folded an A2 s00ted with my 4K stack because I did not want to bubble. Either move could have been good or bad. I would have won the A2 low uncontested. As it ended up last night I did make past the bubble and not much more. It basically took to long for the small stacks to be blinded down and by the time I had chips I had to go all in. I had a decent hand with A23 s00ted, however, the flop of KKJ was not very pretty. Since KKJJ won I guess my KK99 was not too bad. Out in 30th place or so of 400.

So should I have not attacked the small stack with my pocket pair? HU these hands can be profitable and I was guaranteed HU. Should I have played my A2 s00ted? If the KKJ flop happened then I would have most likely bubbled out. It gets really tough at the end of these things if you do not have a lot of chips. Sometimes I decide it is better to bubble and sometimes I get a little sick of being 37th out of 400 and decided to cruise into some amount of money and satisfaction.

I still have not decided if it is better to make the money and then see what else you can do or just play like there is no cutoff. I have to believe that the latter option is the better one. I can take pride in being outside of the bubble so many times right? I mean I consistently almost make the money? One of these times it will pay off with that elusive first place win I so desire right? Does making the money mean more though? I mean if I limped in on the last four I bubbled in then I would have made 5% of the final money? If I keep doing that consistently I will eventually have made the final table money. One of these times I am bound to go on a rush at the right time too and I will hit that elusive first spot. I will then have the addition bubble wins to add on to that right? Who knows. It is such a hard decision and I am not sure either way is wrong.