Kill Phil author Blair Rodman responds:
In a poker tournament, the "bubble" is the finishing position one spot away from the bottom payout spot. The unfortunate player who busts on the bubble is known as the "bubble boy." In the early days of tournaments, as the bubble approached, many short-stacked players would stall, intentionally slowing down play so that hopefully players on other tables would bust out, enabling them to "make the money." As more and more players adopted this tactic, tournaments slowed to a crawl. Also, good players with bigger stacks who understood that many players wouldn't risk busting short of the money wanted to play a lot of hands to pick up some easy chips and were upset when play slowed at their table. It was an untenable situation and something had to be done.
The solution was to go "hand-for-hand," which means that when the tournament gets near the bubble, all tables are coordinated to play the same number of hands until the bubble bursts. This is done by having every dealer stop after completing a hand and waiting to deal the next until all tables have finished the current hand. This is coordinated by the floormen or tournament director (TD). At the WSOP, TD Jack Effel runs the show, instructing dealers to stand up when their hand is completed, and when all dealers are done, to deal the next hand in the same manner until the bubble is burst.
At this year's WSOP, hand-for-hand started with 669 players left, three away from the money. In past years, itβs generally taken several hands and an hour or more for the bubble to burst. This year, four players busted on the first hand! Here are the hands:
AA versus KK -- the pocket aces held up, eliminating one player β 668 remain AA versus QQ -- the pocket aces held up again, eliminating one more player -- 667 remain AA versus 55 -- pockets fives hit a set, eliminating one more player β 666 remain AA versus AK -- the ace-king caught two kings on the flop β 665 remain
It's unusual that four players would pick up aces and get played with on the bubble. In past years there have been many instances where players have folded aces, kings, or queens rather than risk elimination. It seems these players were in the mood to gamble, and two of them holding aces got KO'd. It was the most exciting WSOP bubble ever!
For the past few years, the WSOP has eased the pain of the bubble boy somewhat by awarding him a free entry into the following year's Main Event. (This creates a "bubble bubble," but they can only do so much.) They handled this year's situation of four players busting at the same time by splitting the bottom cash of $19,227 four ways, and intended to hold a satellite among the four players, with the winner getting the seat for next year. However, David Kelly reportedly offered to buy out the other three players for $2,500 each (he might have been able to negotiate a better deal), so he's the first entrant for next year's Main Event.
