Fintan Gavin is changing the game when it comes to mystery bounties in poker tournaments. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Fintan the innovator

Fintan Gavin is one of poker’s great innovators, both as a player and a tournament organizer. Mystery bounties hadn’t long been invented before he decided to run one. Before he did, he rang me to run an idea he had that hadn’t been tried yet. It was simply to have two big bounties rather than one, but to hold one back so that it could only be won on the final table.

as soon as the big bounty was pulled, it was like all the air was sucked out of the room

I loved the idea. It instantly solved one of the most unsatisfactory aspects I’d seen in all the mystery bounties I’d played until then: as soon as the big bounty was pulled, it was like all the air was sucked out of the room, and all the fun sucked out of the tournament as far as recreationals were concerned. At one European Poker Tour (EPT), the buzzkill was particularly severe, as the big bounty was pulled almost immediately by the richest man in the room!

At a recent Irish Poker Tour stop, Fintan introduced a number of other innovations. I wasn’t there myself to see how they were received, and wasn’t as sure myself whether I liked them or not, so I ran them by a number of players in Barcelona recently, and want to run them by readers here to see what you all think.

The misery bounty

The basic idea here is that some bounties are either worth nothing, or little or nothing (like “You win the button”). This has a number of advantages: it increases the sweat factor, and makes the minimum cash bounty seem less of a kick in the testicles. Who among us doesn’t enjoy the “You leave with nothing” slap in the face for some smug git who just knocked us out? And the fact that not every bounty has to be a cash prize actually increases the average value of those that are cash prizes.

the tournament directors chickened out on the day and didn’t have one of these

For the record, most people I asked initially didn’t like this idea, but after some thought changed their minds. In the end, the tournament directors chickened out on the day and didn’t have one of these, but it’s certainly an interesting idea and it could be introduced in future. If it is, it will be interesting to see the reaction.

The advance to final table bounty

This one is a lot more contentious. The basic idea is that if you draw this before the final table, it gives you the option to advance to the final table with what will be an average stack at the start of the final table. Option is a key word in that last sentence, because let’s imagine you were massive chip leader on the final table bubble and you draw this, it would be the ultimate misery bounty. Well, except for…

The eliminated from the tournament bounty

This is the ultimate misery bounty. Most people I asked hated this idea, and objected to it and the “Advance to final table” one on similar grounds: that it unfairly undermines tournament integrity by adding or subtracting chips to the tournament in running.

When I heard about it, my strategic mind immediately went into overdrive thinking about weird ways it could warp tournament strategy.

For example, there are three players left, this bounty still hasn’t been drawn, and one player is overwhelming chip leader with, say, 90% of the chips, and the other two have in or around 5% each. Now, when a shorty shoves, the chip leader can’t call anything, not even Aces, because if he calls and wins, there’s a 50% chance he gets eliminated in second when he pulls the elimination bounty, gifting the tournament to the other short stack!