The late stages of a tournament call for a solid mix of luck and skill. You can’t possibly advance without one or the other, but there is just about nothing you can do to control just how lucky you might get. The late stages of a tournament are the primary reason why tournaments have so much variance. You can play perfect poker for 10 tournaments in a row and never end up with anything better than a min cash.

It goes without saying that as an MTT player, the late stages of the tournament are when it really starts to matter. It’s not just the final table, either – depending on the size of the tournament, you may find that the dynamics change with as many as 100 players left. Sit & Go Tournament. Sit & Go poker gives you all the action of late stage or final table poker, without having to navigate through large fields. It’s the best way to practice final table and short-handed strategies. Basic Sit & Go Strategy Prior to playing Sit & Continued.

Nothing is more frustrating than making a deep run only to bust out in the late stages because you lost a few coin flips that you had no control over. Ask any past World Series of Poker Main Event final tableist how they got there. The odds are that they will say that they got very lucky. Ask those same players how they busted out and they may very well tell you that they got a little unlucky. This is just how tournament poker works, for better or worse.

Of course, nothing is more exhilarating or fun than being able to put together a good run that is aided by some good luck. The late stages of tournaments are as close to pure gambling as poker gets. There isn’t a whole lot you can do to control your own fate if the poker gods have other plans, so you may very well have to flip a number of coins and hope for the best. How about that for poker tournament strategy?

While there is an obvious amount of luck involved in tournament play, it does not mean that all skill is void and useless. The truth is that there are a lot of skills required for successful late stage tournament play. The skills are more about identifying certain situations than they are about making complicated or intricate plays.

For example, you aren’t going to worry about making a triple barrel or check raising on the flop, but you will need to know when you should be going all in and when you should be folding. This is what is widely known as push fold strategy. Going all in or folding become your only two options because your chip stack will be very small in comparison to the blinds. You can’t possibly afford to make plays when you only have a handful of big blinds to work with, let alone expect them to pay off. You have to play with a fearless attitude in the later stages of tournaments. Where passiveness and selective aggression is all the rage in the beginning and middle stages of tournaments, it will be deadly to your chances of survival as you move into the later stages.

Before the Final Table

The late stages of a tournament are well after you have already made the money, so the next logical step is to prepare for the final table. You should be ready and willing to take chances that will put you in position to actually win the tournament. There is no space for unnecessary risks, but it is OK to flip a coin for a chance at winning.

The problem with this approach is that you never want to actually risk everything on the flip of a coin. You should be trying to create significant edges, 65/35, 75/25, etc., and be happy if you end up getting in a few flips. There is a major difference between aiming for coin flips and winding up in a coin flip. In the end, coin flips should be a worst case scenario when you decide to make a big play. If you get your money in worse than you had expected, and are still even money, there is no reason to be all that upset.

Blinds Are Important

The blinds are initially in place to help pick up the pace and to force players to get involved, but when the blinds equate to 10% of your stack in the later stages of a tournament, they are very well worth fighting for. Your stack could be 200,000 and you could be playing with the blinds at 10,000/20,000. This will mean that a simple blind steal will increase your stack by around 15%. Steal a few sets of blinds and you are suddenly 50% richer.

Advanced tournament players are able to consistently pick off the blinds in an attempt to really build up their stack. This isn’t a risk free way to go about winning pots and increasing your equity, but it is safer than going all in and hoping for folds all around. The general rules for stealing the blinds will still apply. Look for late position steals against tight players. These are the types of plays that will actually work, whereas steal attempts from middle position against loose players in the blinds will fail at a fairly high clip. Stealing blinds is a valuable way to accumulate chips and it could decide whether you run over your opponents or have your stack melted away.

Multi-table poker tournaments (also known as MTT's for short) of all field sizes and buy-in levels can be found online 24 hours a day.

This article will cover basic multi-table tournament strategy at the various stages that a tournament will go through before the lucrative final table.

MTT prize pool structure.

We will start by looking at the key factor of how the prize pool in a multi-table online poker tournament is distributed – and the big influence this needs to have on your strategy in order to maximize your poker winnings over time. Next we go through the early, middle (including the bubble) and later stages of a poker tournament showing what factors influence your strategy at each point.

Tournament prize distribution is very ‘top heavy’. The players who reach the final table will split up to half of the total prizes between them – while those who make it into the first paying spots only will often win less than twice their initial buy-in. Even at the final table the top 3 paying places will give a disproportionately larger payout than the other places.

This has a large effect on tournament strategy for those players who are looking to maximize their long-term profits. Aggressive, positive play is rewarded at all stages of the tournament - by a shot at reaching the final table. Passive play during the later stages may enable you to sneak into the money positions – however this will not make up for just a few final table appearances when adding up profits at the end of the month or year.

Early stage tournament strategy.

In the very early stages of a poker tournament the game plays in a similar way to a cash game table. This is because the stack sizes are many times the size of the blinds, allowing betting on the flop, turn and river for many hands. ‘Deep Stacked’ play involves its own adjustments including favoring hands which can make hidden ‘monsters’ such as small pairs and suited connectors. Hands that are easily dominated such as Ace-Ten and King-Jack should generally be avoided at this stage.

Your strategy objective in the first few blind levels should be to accumulate chips from the weaker opponents who will still be in the tournament at this stage. At the same time you should avoid big ‘gambles’ for all of your chips if you feel that your skill advantage will have time to show over a larger number of small pots.

One saying for the early stages of multi-table tournaments is that ‘you need to take the chips from the weak players before someone else does’ – after all they will be harder to take from a stronger opponent later down the line.

Transitioning from early to late stages.

As the blinds and antes get higher when compared to the average stacks your tournament strategy needs to adjust to new conditions. Since you must invest more chips to see a flop the value of the speculative hands played in the early stages goes down.

High cards however go up in value when you are the first to enter the pot. Since calling a raise in the middle stages requires investing a large proportion of your stack this should be avoided where possible. Your opponents are often in the same situation – meaning that you’re raising requirements can be ‘lighter’ than before, especially from late position.

Playing on the bubble.

The bubble is the stage of the tournament where just a few players need to be eliminated in order to reach the money paying places. At this stage the single most important factor affecting your strategy are stack sizes – both your own and those of your opponents.

Having a large stack at the bubble will allow you to pick up many pots uncontested – as players will be less likely to fight with a big stack when they risk busting out before the money. Other big stacks and very short stacks should be avoided here, as they are more likely to call you.

If you have a medium stack at the bubble then you can use the knowledge that bigger stacks are likely to steal pots to your advantage. If you are dealt a reasonably strong hand and expect the big stack to be ‘raising light’ you can have a positive expectation situation for a re-raise. Sure you will get unlucky and bust out sometimes – but your strategy for the whole tournament is to reach the final table and doubling up could give you a chance to do so, more than making up for losing the small ‘in the money’ payout.

After the bubble ‘bursts’ players will often loosen up considerably in an effort to accumulate enough chips to reach the final table. At this stage you need to choose your spots carefully. As with all forms of poker it is better to be the raiser rather than the caller.

MTT final table strategy.

The final table brings in yet another factor into your poker strategy thinking. Stack sizes are still very important, but now the payout structure – and your opponent’s strategy in relation to this come to the fore.

The presence of a very small stack is a good example of how this affects the dynamic of the final table. Medium stacks will see that one player is just 1 big blind away from busting and will tighten up to avoid going out before this player. This can lead to some great opportunities to pick up chips without too much risk.

Aggressive and positive poker are again the key elements to success at this stage of the poker tournament. The top three places will pay proportionately more than the rest – aim high by picking fights with those opponents who look like they would like to move up in the money. Big stacks and small stacks should again be avoided, the medium stacks are much more likely to fold to pressure at this stage.

MTT strategy evaluation.

In summary, tournament strategy involves adjusting to the various stages which a poker tournament will go through. At the same time your goal in every tournament should be to reach the final table. Busting on the bubble never feels good – however if for each time you bubble you reach another final table then your long-term profits will be better than that of opponents who tighten up in order to make the money.

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Poker Tournament Late Stage Strategy Games

Poker Tournament Late Stage Strategy 2019

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