The bounty tournament, aka headhunter tournament, brings a little something extra to the prize pool. Additional prize money is awarded to any player who busts a particular opponent, typically somebody famous. Before the event begins, tournament officials designate a small percentage of players as having prices on their heads, and these bounty players start the tourney with a "bounty button."
When they bust out, the bounty buttons then become the property of the player who dealt the fatal blow. At the end of the tournament, bounty buttons are cashed in for money, which is totally separate and independent from any prize money awarded for finishing well in the tourney. In all other respects, bounty tournaments play out exactly the same as a regular tournament.
The price for each bounty can be just about anything, but generally it's somewhere in the $20-$100 range. The cash to pay for the bounties is usually taken out of the tournament prize pool-using a quarter of the total money for bounties is about average-but sometimes the money will come from the host casino itself.
Strategy-wise, should you make adjustments to your play in a bounty tournament? As always, the answer is that it depends. Are you one of the hunters, or one of the hunted? For bounty players who have targets on their backs, the character of the tournament changes enormously. Now, every single opponent they play against, in each and every hand, has an extra financial incentive for wanting to take them down. Hands will get called down more frequently by all those bounty-chasers, seduced into playing inferior hands by the hope of winning the bounty prize.
If you're the player with a price on his head, this dynamic brings both good and bad news. On the plus side, your strong hands will get paid off more handsomely. You can push all-in with the mortal nuts and stand a very good chance of getting called. And in general your opponents will be overplaying weaker hands against you, which certainly works in your favor. But there's plenty on the minus side as well. For one thing, the power of bluffs and even semi-bluffs is greatly nullified, for the obvious reason that you can't bluff against callers. Your fold equity declines substantially. And there's a kind of bounty-schooling effect that happens-with so many other players liable to call your bets and raises, your good hands will have a much harder time holding up. In short, more suck-outs.
For regular players without a price on their heads, the difference is much less dramatic. One possible advantage is that if you do score a bounty or two along the way, you know that you've already made back some or all of your buy-in money, which can encourage you to play with more confidence and aggression. But on the flip side, some players become so focused on trying to win a particular bounty that they'll lose sight of what should be their main goal, and effectively sacrifice trying to win the tourney itself.
The most effective strategy for winning a bounty is often at odds with the optimum strategy for the tournament as a whole. Like the rest of the bounty-chasing crowd, you can find yourself making too-loose calls that you never would have made otherwise-just in the hopes of grabbing that reward money.
Much depends on the price of the bounty versus the payout structure of the tournament, but generally speaking, unless the bounty is very lucrative, this is not a good approach to take. Better to stay focused on the primary goal of making it to the final table, which is where the real money begins anyway. Bounties are always very nice as a side bonus, but the big prize lies elsewhere.
Barbara Connors is a sucker for classic old movies, science fiction, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Her life's ambition is to figure out the unusual behavior patterns of that unique breed of humans who call themselves poker players. Contact her at fyreflye222@yahoo.com.
