Bounty And PKO Tournament Strategy
A Bounty Lowers The Equity You Need To Call An All In, Because Busting The Player Wins You The Bounty As Well As The Pot: Calling 20 Big Blinds Into 21.5 Needs 48.2% Equity Alone, And 38.8% If You Value The Bounty At 10 Big Blinds.
Tournaments Lesson From Smarter.Poker, Updated
How Bounties Work
In A Bounty Tournament Part Of Every Buy In Goes To A Bounty On Each Player, Paid To Whoever Eliminates Them. In A Progressive Knockout, Or PKO, Part Of Each Bounty You Win Is Paid To You Immediately And The Rest Is Added To Your Own Bounty, So The Players Who Have Busted Others Carry The Biggest Prices On Their Heads. A Half And Half Split Is Common.
That Structure Changes The Math Of Every All In Against A Player You Cover. You Are No Longer Playing Only For The Chips In The Middle. You Are Also Playing For The Bounty, Which Is Worth Something Only If You Win The Hand And The Player Is Out.
The Math Of Calling
Suppose An Opponent Moves All In For 20 Big Blinds, You Cover Them, And You Must Call 20 Into A Pot Of 21.5 That Already Includes Their Shove And The Blinds. Without A Bounty The Call Needs 48.2% Equity. If You Value The Bounty At 10 Big Blinds Worth Of Chips, The Call Needs 38.8%. At 20 Big Blinds It Needs 32.5%.
The Hard Part Is Valuing The Bounty In Chips. It Depends On How Much Of It Is Paid Immediately, How Much Of The Tournament Is Left And How Much Of The Prize Pool Sits In Bounties Rather Than In The Payouts. Early In A Progressive Knockout A Bounty Is Worth Relatively Little Compared To The Stacks; Late In One, When Bounties Have Grown, It Can Be Worth More Than The Pot Itself.
| Bounty Value In Big Blinds | Equity Needed |
|---|---|
| 0 | 48.2% |
| 5 | 43% |
| 10 | 38.8% |
| 20 | 32.5% |
| 30 | 28% |
Strategy Adjustments
Call Wider Against Players You Cover, Especially Short Stacks With Large Bounties. Be More Careful Against Players Who Cover You, Because You Are Not Winning Their Bounty If You Win The Hand. Expect Opponents To Call Your Shoves Wider For The Same Reason, So Shove A Little Tighter When Your Own Bounty Is Large.
Bounties Also Change Multiway Pots. Two Players May Call A Short Stack's Shove Because Both Want The Bounty, Which Means The Player Who Is All In Faces Worse Odds And The Callers Must Think About Each Other's Ranges As Well As The Shover's.
Keep Learning
- Pot Odds: How To Know If A Call Pays
- M Ratio And Short Stack Play
- ICM Basics: Chips Are Not Money
- Final Table ICM Strategy
Poker Terms In This Lesson
Practise It On Smarter.Poker
The Answer Above Is Complete. When You Want To Drill It, These Are The Matching Training Tools.
- Play PKO Bounty Hunter The Training Game For This Lesson.
- Open Jarvis Training Insights Jarvis Explains Your Training Decisions In Words.
Free To Play. 18+. No Real Money Gambling. Chips And Diamonds Have No Cash Value.