Multi-Table Tournaments: Tactics for the Final Table.

 

 

Ok, so you have made your way through the labyrinth, fought off valiant opponents, and all that remains is to conquer the Minotaur, or, if you prefer, you have made it to the final table, the end of the MTT is in sight and winning is within your grasp. Once more, you will have to adapt your game to the situation.

 

At the final table the critical part of the game is played before the pre-flop, this means you have to choose your spot with less information. If you do not touch any decent cards, which often happens at the final table where play lasts less than an hour, everything is played aggressively, so take courage and good luck!

 

 

The following is a brief overview of the basic strategies you should employ at the final table, a more in-depth explanation of each point is discussed later in the article: all the finalists know which hands to push with (if their hands have the force to) and how to play their strong hands. Additionally, this article will make the assumption that you are a player at the final table with an averagely sized stack.

 

Chose your mark:

By mark we mean victim, the opponent that you see as prey, and who you are looking to steal a stack from.

 

You are now at the final table and you have had plenty of time to study, observe, and accumulate information on, your opponents…and now only three are left- but this is not sufficient to allow you to choose your mark. In general, the first thing that all players do when arriving at the final table, is to analyse the prize structure and then compare their stack to their opponents.

 

It is the short-stack that, in general, becomes the first mark.

 

No-body wants to be the first player to be eliminated from the table and there are even some poker players who will be happy to fold all their hands in order to wait for a few of the short-stacks to be purged, simply to avoid being the first out. It is a fact that for each player that leaves the table all the remaining players are automatically advanced towards one of the winning classifications, and, after all, there is nothing wrong with keeping your eyes on the prize.

 

But, do not allow this tactic to rule your game, if the chips need to be pushed into the table then push them. And of course, the small-stacks have a bad habit of doubling on everything, at all costs- after all they have nothing to lose. A medium-stack on the other hand can allow themselves to lose a few chips during the course of a round.

 

At the final table hunt down firstly a weak player with a large-stack.

 

In order to identify the weak players at the final table, it is possible to use the statistics accumulated by the casino sites, for example, check out OPR- Official Poker Rankings website. You will find a lot of information on poker players. For example, you will not take as your mark a player who has a high ROI (return on investment), because such a player has proven to be an experienced Multi-Table Tournament finalist. On the other hand, you can attempt one or two re-steals against this type of player with ‘any two cards’, because they be capable of folding their hands after a re-raise.

 

Occasionally, OPR will show you that one of the players seated at the final table has only won very small sums, so far, in tournament settings. Often, it is their first time at the final tables and they will be concentrating more on the structure of the prizes, rather than identifying profitable opportunities. If this player has a large-stack, you can steal his blinds more often because he will not play his best hands.

 

The above will also apply to those players who have already played MTT’s, but which at present have only been priced at $5, and who now find themselves sat in a tournament for $50, 000.

 

There are also those players who have amassed huge profits, but who’s ROI is very weak. These players are certainly risk-takers, but they are also the most active of opponents. They will call often, steal the blinds, and steal your chips…but, because they are prone to bet everything on the flip-of-a-coin. Keep an eye on these players and only go-in against them when you are sure you have a strong hand.

 

To summarise, the proven statistics that you can get from sites such as OPR can prove to be a very beneficial tool in an MTT. But, if you cannot find the information you want, there are other techniques that you can use to identify weak players.

 

The other day, I saw a player with a stack of 750, 000 re-raise with 120, 000 Under-the-Gun (UTG), the blinds being 20, 000 and 40, 000. Everybody folded up to the big blind, who went all-in with 190, 000. Believe it if you want, but the initial re-raiser then folded himself! In spite of favourable odds and given to the fact that he was not playing for survival.

 

If you come across a similar situation you can manage to win a lot of chips from the player in question, simply because he does not understand the game, and he is just looking to get a place in the winning formation. I then geared myself towards exploiting this weakness, on the following hand, he was in the Big Blind position and re-raised 120, 000 at the cut-off with a 9 of clubs and a 10 of clubs. He re-raised to 240, 000 and I instantly went all-in. AS you may have anticipated, the player folded and lost a huge portion of his chips.

 

Another concept that many weak poker players do not understand is that you sometimes need to cooperate with other players. The Big Blind and I both had around 250, 000 chips and the blinds were being played at 5, 000 and 10, 000 with an ante of 1, 000. The Small Blind was the short-stack of the table, with 19, 000. Everybody folded until it was my turn, I was positioned at the button and, instead of re-raising, I contented myself with paying the blind with an 8 of clubs and a Jack of hearts. A very marginal hand, I know, but I was just trying to let the Big Blind understand (without writing anything in chat, which can be taken by other opponents as a form of cheating) that I wanted us to work together to eliminate the Small Blind. The Small Blind went all-in with 19, 000, but, disaster! The Big Blind folded! I finished by calling the Small Blind and lost the hand, it was not very serious, but this just proved to me that this player clearly does not understand the game, and that he was happy to economise his chips for the chance of getting a good hand. I thus re-raised the player at the Small Blind (the player with the small-stack originally in the small blind position went out on the following hand) four subsequent times and I managed to eliminate him on the fifth attempt when he went all-in at the exact moment when I returned the King of spades and the King of Diamonds.

 

But even with OPR, with the observations you would have made earlier in the tournament and with all the other signs that have revealed to you the weak players, there is another factor to take into account when trying to win the final table, and that is your analysis of the situation.

 

RE-steals:

In effect, your task also consists of realising all those situations where you have a good chance of winning the pot pre-flop. Unfortunately, the situation will frequently arise where you will receive very few good hands at the final table, and this is why you must always try to gain the best from every situation that is presented to you.

 

Re-stealing re-raises from the Button is the best known method of achieving this end. You need to execute this move when you have a hand with good potential, for example, assorted connections or small pairs, in case the Button realises what your tactics are and attempts to follow you. Of course, each time that you engage a large proportion of your chips, the risk is always present. If the Button or the Small Blind (coming from the original steal) decides to flat-call and you miss the flop completely, do not invest, even an additional single chip, in this hand.

 

The aim of a re-steal is to bring in the pot pre-flop, so do not attempt a bluff that will implicate your techniques. There is nothing wrong with folding after a missed re-steal. Your tactic did not work and you have lost a portion of your stack, but you are still in the game, and no need to risk that is there?

 

Normally, I impose two rules on the conditions needed in order to attempt a re-steal:

 

-A re-steal should not cost me more than a third of my stack.

 

-If the situation arises that I lose the pot, I should always be left with a hand of at least 5.

 

Profit from small-stacks:

When a player re-raises, either he has a good hand or he is attempting to steal the pot. So analyse every small-stack player because everyone you beat means a higher position up the qualifying table signifies more money. Gain profit from this.

 

Example: the blinds are 25, 000/ 50, 000 with an ante of 3000, and every one folds up to the Middle Position (who has a stack of 460, 000) who performs an open-raise of 150, 000. Everybody folds up to me, who is Big Blind, with a monster stack of 1.5 million and a 5 of spades and 6 of clubs.

 

I push the short-stack to go all-in.

 

-          “why are you doing that?” my friend asks me.

 

I know have time to answer him: If I had been followed and lost the hand, I will still have a massive stack with which to play. My cards are OK and even have a chance of beatnig an overpair.

 

But the most important is that there is a small-stack just before the initial re-raise who has only got 210, 000 chips remaining. This is why I said to myself that I had a strong chance of making the original re-raiser fold his cards. Small-stacks will often fold in this type of situation, where an even smaller stack can be found on their right-hand side, who will be in the blind position before them, who thus have a strong chance of beating the first. By putting pressure on the other small stacks around the table, you will often win some good pots pre-flop.

 

In contrast to my previous article, I deliberately chose to concentrate on the advantages of certain situations, rather than on the advantages of certain hands. I think that this is what makes the difference between a winner and a loser on the final table. You will often not have the opportunity of finishing on the last table, and the cards that you receive are rarely good. By researching information, observing your opponents and analysing situations correctly you will be making life a lot easier for yourself.

 

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