When analyzing your tournament play, it is important that you identify the mistakes you are making in an attempt to eliminate them from ever happening again. While it may be difficult to recognize some of these mistakes, often times these mistakes rear their ugly heads as you bust out of a tournament. Most players know whether or not they were the victim of a “bad beat” or a “race situation”, but I don’t think most players give much thought beyond this. While there are literally hundreds of ways to get busted out of a tourney, I have organized some of the most common into “good busts” or “bad busts”.

Good Busts

High pocket pair versus high pocket pair. We’ve all had this happen to us. Our KK runs into AA late in a tourney and we don’t catch our two-outer. Unfortunate, but how often can you reasonably justify laying down KK?

Bad beats. While this may be one of the most frustrating ways to bust out, it is actually one of the best when you think about it. So what if your AK lost to A3 or your QQ got cracked by 78 off suit? You got your money in with the best of it and the cards didn’t fall your way. You played it correctly but got unlucky; you cannot help that.

Your opponent would not fold his draw no matter what and they caught it. This is one of my personal pet peeves. You caught your set and bet it hard only to have an opponent go all-in with his flush draw or inside straight draw. It’s annoying when they catch but the fact of the matter is that I LOVE playing against these kind of players because the vast majority of the time they won’t catch their draw and I’ll either bust them or double up. Regardless, this is generally a poor play on their part and there is nothing to do when they catch but say “nice hand”.

You lost a race. Self-explanatory. It’s late in a tourney and your QQ loses to AK or something similar. Again, hard to justify laying it down and there are far worse ways to lose.

Bad Busts


You chased your draws when the odds did not warrant it. We all know that draws are death in no limit poker. Most of the time we will not hit our straight or flush and it will only cost us precious chips. Remember, not losing chips is the same thing as gaining chips. A chip saved is a chip earned. While there is a correct time to go after your draws, they can lead to a quick exit if correct judgment is not used.

Played pot-committed poker. You invested some chips in a pot and it became clear you were way behind. Instead of just folding and moving on to the next hand, you stubbornly called off most or all of your chips because you couldn’t stand losing those chips you already put into the pot. Put your ego aside and lay it down; you’ll thank yourself a couple hours later when your sitting at the final table.

You were affected by some force outside of poker. Sometimes you entered a tourney when you knew you had to leave in a couple hours. Sometimes you get caught up in the ball game on TV and you lose your focus. Other times your mind is elsewhere and you just don’t have your A game. If this is the case, recognize it and vow to never again play in a tournament if you cannot give 100% for as long as might be needed to take the whole damn thing down.

You played to money and got blinded off. These are the players that might make the money on occasion but will probably never win a MTT or even final table. When play gets down toward the money, these players shut down and try to simply outlast the other short stacks and squeak into the money where they will, invariably, bust almost immediately because they are so short-stacked. Don’t be one of these players. When the play gets down to the cutoff, open up and steal those blinds that these players won’t protect because they want some return on 2 or 3 hours of poker. This is the time to make your moves. I’d rather go out on the bubble in a blaze of glory and have a chance to go deep into the money than finish just inside the money with no hope of reaching the final table.

You paid off better hands. You called a big bet on the river with middle pair, you wouldn’t let your A-rag go when an ace fell on the flop (even though your opponent raised pre-flop), you called that raise with 4 hearts on the board and all you had was 2 pair. What do these all have in common? You paid off superior hands when it was apparent you were beat. DON’T GIVE AWAY YOUR CHIPS. There will be plenty of times when you have the best hand and you let THEM pay YOU off, don’t return the favor. Recognize you are beat and fold, your turn will come around soon enough and then they can pay you off.

You tried to bluff a calling-station. I have been a frequent violator of this rule myself. Often I will even have “calling station” written in their player notes! Still, I try to bully them out of a big pot and I’m shocked when they call me down with pocket tens when the board shows AK62J. If you have them pegged as a calling station, don’t attempt to bluff them! Instead, let them pay off your monsters when they are drawing practically dead.

You lost in a hand you probably shouldn’t have even been involved in. You called pre-flop with crap and caught the flop. Perhaps your 47 looked like a lock when the flop came 47Q but quickly turned to trash when the board paired runner-runner and counterfeited you. Maybe the other guy caught trips. Regardless, you played an inferior hand and lost to a better hand. It wouldn’t have happened if you had mucked that crap preflop and didn’t get involved in the first place.


This list is obviously not all-inclusive and will certainly be different for each individual player. Regardless of your playing style, none of us wins every MTT that we enter, which means that we each get busted. By analyzing how we got busted, including the action that led up to the bust, we can better prepare ourselves for future tournaments.

Try to learn something from every bust so that you can better yourself each and every time you play. Make a list of the ways in which you get busted and then think of ways to prevent that situation from happening again (i.e. “I will NEVER get blinded off on the bubble ever again, I will take my shot earlier”). By eliminating the mistakes that we make, we give ourselves a better chance to go deeper into the tourneys we enter and take down the big money.