I have troubles with the game before the bubble, i `m afraid to open my range, I remain just as tight and make mistakes blind vs blind, do not know what to open ... If anyone can tell me which way to take to improve my game before the bubble ... sometimes I feel what cards to open but i don`t, because of my fear for loosing chips and then I see the board and I had the best hand ... please any advice is welcome I'm tired of losing money just before the bubble

what types of sngs are you speaking of?

1.50 - 90 knockout , mtt 1.10, 0.55

You should get looser as the tournament progresses (more so when antes come into play), as stealing the blinds becomes more of a necessity and a constant way to pick up chips.
Of course that's not always possible as sometimes you will have loose players to your left in which case you generally need to tighten up/stay tight but unless they are stations we can often actually get a bit looser still and exploit them postflop (mainly if they have a high fold to cbet%).
Cold-calling will be almost eliminated from your game as stacks get shorter as it becomes -EV.

Generally you should look to steal at every given opportunity - even from MP as long as people are tight enough.
You should try to avoid folding the SB if it folds around to you - this isn't to say you always have to raise (as that would be ineffective and even bad against certain players) but we can also limp-stab. From the SB if the BB is a typical TAG I generally raise 2.2x/fold, however if it's a loose passive 37/10 then limping and betting any flop becomes a much better choice.

You should also look to attack players who are playing 'too' LAG if you have a decent enough stack size (35-40bb+ imo). By 'attack' I mean 3-bet them IP if they are raising CO/HJ/MP loosely, don't do it with ATC though - we should generally try to be polarized so I would suggest constructing a range (for example our 3bet range IP could be 99+,AJ+ with 55-22,K6s-K2s,Q7s-Q3s,J8s-J4s).

Towards the bubble, players are generally quite timid and not willing to put many chips in without bigger hands - so you also need to be tighter than usual vs. 3bets and opens.

You should also look to re-steal shove more if your stack is <20bb's or so, otherwise you'll find your stack further dwindling.


This is all I can think of right now, hope it helped, gl.

I usually open up even wider around the bubble, non-regs will be really tight. Don't be afraid to try and go for first instead of hoping to mincash.

Im not sure about the payout structure of those tournaments... but in general if the payout is more flat then you dont need to be so tight, and if there is a big pay jump between busting and making the money then you need to tighten your calling range but you should be shoving wide assuming your not shoving into calling stations..

In general though dont be scared if you think your taking a pretty good solid +cEV spot take it on the bubble.. and when shoving you can shove a little wider especially into stacks whom you have covered because for them to call and loose there gone.. sometimes shoving into big stacks can be a bad idea.

hope that helps somewhat.. its a broad topic, but be aggressive and let the others worry about squeaking into the money!

A lot of it depends on stack sizes and table dynamics. Why don't you post some hands and we can talk about it.

If you´re having issues on such a basic aspect of the game as bubble play i would sugest droping any MTT action and just keeping the sng till your able to work this out and develop ur end game.
Obviously depends on many factors like stacks distribution on the table, table dynamic, villains tendencies, pay out structures among others, but generally speaking this is when u need to be the most aggresive, its by far the best spot in the entire sng/mtt to pick up chips with the less risk posible.