Poker Tournament End Game Strategy
Playing the end of a big poker tournament involves some interesting decisions. If you are down to the last few players out of a large field, there is some serious money at stake. The difference between being the next one out and moving up two more spots (possibly to finish first or second) is going to be huge. So how should you play it? Is there a specific strategy that helps give you an edge? Today I am going to discuss what you should do in this situation to maximize your expectation. I just hope you have the heart to follow it.
The money at stake is going to rattle your opponents. You need to not get rattled. You should forget about the money and try to win the tournament. That usually means doing some aggressive gambling to try and win some chips. Being as your opponents figure to be screwed down to extremely tight play, that shouldn’t be too hard.
Your goal is to get a big chip lead and then stop playing for a while. As long as nobody has a big chip lead in the game, you should steal early and often. Make aggressive preflop raises and take stabs at the pot post-flop with reasonable sized bets. If you run into resistance in the form of a raise, give it up. Very often you can start building a decent chip lead this way - as your opponents are probably not going to be in a gambling mood. They are waiting for AK, AQs, or a pocket pair before they do any coin flipping.
If there is a large stack at the table, forget about everybody else and try and double through that person. Start pushing all-in preflop against them with any suited ace, A9+, any pocket pair, and any suited connectors or one-gappers above 3-4. Yes, that means push all-in with 57s as long as you don’t know that you will be called. If your opponent is in there with AK or AQs against you, you still have a 40% chance to win. Even if they catch you while they have a big pocket pair you still have a 20% chance. The fold equity makes the play worthwhile, so make sure you have some when your push.
If your steal attempts fail and you get short-stacked, start pushing preflop with all the hands just mentioned as well. Fold everything else - don’t play KQs or anything like that. Wait for one of these hands and shove preflop.
If you succeed in building a large stack stop playing. That may seem silly to a lot of players, but it is your best move. Don’t click the out button as that is kind of rude. Just sit there and fold everything except aces and kings until the other players knock each other out, and you are even-stacked after a couple more eliminations. That way you can play for first place at the end - where the real money is.
This is a bit of an unorthodox approach, but it’s a heck of a lot better than sitting there scared and waiting for the nuts as the blinds rapidly increase.
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