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- Poker Final Table Strategy
It also applies to final table play, where you have big money jumps. If you want to get better and learn poker tournament strategy, you have to learn this concept. Therefore, study ICM situation using any of the tools available online and make sure to understand what it stands for. Your MTT strategy should change according to the stack size. May 08, 2019 Use these 7 poker tournament tips to improve your strategy and make the final table more often. These are meant for both live and online tournament players.
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.
Top MTT poker rooms.
1) PokerStars - Stars has the most MTTs along with the softest players. The MTT structure is standard, but nonetheless PokerStars remains as the top room for MTTs. Easily the top choice for MTT players. Visit PokerStars.
2) Full Tilt - Like Stars, Full Tilt has a shed load of MTTs running throughout the day. The MTT structure is better than at Stars in my opinion, but the competition isn't quite as soft. Visit Full Tilt.
3) Party Poker - Party is another high traffic room, so there are plenty of MTTs available. Party has the worst MTT structure out of the 3 (although in general it's not all that bad), but the room makes up for this by playing host to some incredibly soft MTT players. Visit Party Poker.
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.
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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.
This article is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to MTT strategy. For more information and a bunch of other articles about playing in multi-table tournaments, try the poker tournament strategy section at my friend's MosesBet.com website.
Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Digging deep into the PokerNews strategy archives can unearth some buried treasure for seekers of strategy gems. This edition of the Strategy Vault revisits a conversation with Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree about a big online tournament win, a discussion that includes several insights about final table strategy.
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At the time Boeree wasn’t too far removed from her breakthrough victory in the European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event. It was less than a year after that win Boeree took down the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up to earn a $147,780.96 payday — at the time her biggest score after the €1.25 million prize in Sanremo.
Poker Mtt Final Table Strategy Pdf
It was a tough final table at which James “mig.com” Mackey finished runner-up and her fellow Team PokerStars Pro Marcin “Goral Horecki took eighth. Daniel “KidPoker” Negreanu also made a deep run in that one, finishing 22nd.
Shortly after the win, Boeree spoke with PokerNews about some of the strategies she employed during the tournament's latter stages, including analyzing one key hand versus Mackey while heads-up.
PokerNews: First, talk about your tournament just before the final table. What was shorthanded play like for you?
Liv Boeree: I was lingering around 20 big blinds for quite a while leading up to the final table, basically just staying alive by reshoving on people a lot but playing pretty straightforward. I had 'jymaster' and 'DNA2RNA' on my left who are both really good and aggressive, which made life difficult, so I opened tight but reshoved fairly wide.
So you were opening tight with plans to call shoves that other players may be doing light?
In a certain respect, yes. I was just trying to be stack-size aware as many people were in the same boat as me stack-wise. I didn't make any particularly huge calls before the final table, though.
So once at the final table, what was your overall game plan as far as your relative stack and position versus certain players?
I was trying to be ICM-aware and let the short-stacks bust. I was middle of the pack and because of that, it didn't make much sense for me to make any unnecessarily aggressive moves, as I wanted to move up the money spots a bit.
'Mig.com' [i.e., James Mackey] was who I had my eye on, as I know how good he is. But he was basically on the opposite side of the table to me so wasn't posing too much of a problem. Also, I noticed he was playing a very similar style to me — solid.
For those who don't know, can you go into a bit more detail on what it means to be 'ICM-aware,' and possibly highlight mistakes people make when not taking this into consideration?
Well, to get to the basics, playing tournaments is different from playing cash. For example, winning all the chips in a tournament doesn't win you all the cash, whereas in cash games (or winner-take-all tourneys) it obviously does. So often, people play a bit too recklessly on a final table and don't take into account their stacks or their opponents'.
Whilst it's always good to shoot for the title, you have to remember that ultimately you are playing to make money, and making an unnecessary move on a big money bubble when there are short stacks about to bust can be less than optimal. So it's about finding a comfortable balance between using your aggression to collect free chips and being aware of the money jumps.
When watching the final table replay, it seemed as though players were three-bet shipping big stacks instead of three-betting and opening themselves up to a four-bet. Is that standard?
Yes, I did see that a fair bit. It's hard to say why each individual chose to do it, but I guess it's because they value their tournament life too much and as such, didn't want to take a big flip unnecessarily.
The trouble with doing that too much is that you miss out on potential value with your big hands, of course. Or they could be doing it to balance their three-bet shoving ranges.
When you got heads-up against Mackey, he was min-raising almost every button. It seemed like you were mostly flatting with decent hands out of position like king-ten, queen-nine, and ace-nine. What were your thoughts behind that?
Well, first of all, I didn't want to destroy the value of those hands by three-bet folding them, but also I didn't want to defend too wide out of position against him as he's such a good player.
Plus, I was starting to get a few tells about his postflop play, like he was checking back his made hands on the flop and betting his misses. Hence the check-raise I made with on the two-diamond board. He's rarely betting a queen or jack there.
There was one hand heads-up versus Mackey — here are the details:
Poker Mtt Final Table Strategy Download
- Stacks: Boeree ~ 19 million, Mackey ~ 27 million
- Stakes: Blinds 250,000/500,000 with a 50,000 ante
- Action: Mackey min-raised from the button to 1 million, and Boeree called with . The flop was . Boeree checked, Mackey bet 1.3 million, and Boeree called. The turn was the , and both players checked. The river was the . Boeree checked, and Mackey bet 3.33 million. Boeree called, and Mackey showed for a straight.
Talk us through this one.
I misplayed that hand. I should've led the turn.
Why? Because the helped his range? Or because he wasn't double-barreling with air?
Because he wasn't double-barreling with air, and it's fairly draw heavy. Instead, I let him check down and then I called a river bet without thinking. D'oh!
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Do you think that most of the time, a bet from him there on the river is for value, and most value hands beat yours?
No, not necessarily. He could bluff there as it's a pretty bluffy board. But more importantly, I should've led the turn and gotten some value whilst I was still ahead! Ah, the power of hindsight.
If you'd led the turn and he called, what would you have done on the river?
I guess if I was being super smart, I would check-fold the river, but I rarely am! He's never floating with nothing on the turn, so I have to assume he's calling with some kind of value hand, and if he's betting the river, then I'm not beating anything. But, knowing me, I probably would've check-called because I'm a station [laughs].
For a more recent Q&A with Boeree, check out this video from the recently finished European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monaco in which she answers 44 questions in five minutes:
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Poker Final Table Strategy
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