Getting to a final table in an MTT is no small feat and it doesn’t happen often. When you do get there, you need to take advantage of the rare opportunity you’ve earned and go for the big money. Navigating your way through a final table isn’t easy though, as you have eight or nine other players with the same goal in mind. The amount of money you win usually increases dramatically at this stage, and some players will be content to sit back and try to ladder up a couple of spots. Other players will be thrilled just to have made the final table and will start to get careless and play recklessly. The best players are the ones who pay attention to what the other players are doing and attack and defend accordingly.
Short stack
When a final table begins, what you do will mostly be dictated by your stack size. If you are short, with say less than ten big blinds, you generally have two options. You can either start gambling, looking to double-up and put yourself in a better position to win, or you can sit back and try to move up a couple of spots to make more money. Which option you choose will depend mainly on how much the money matters to you, though ideally you won’t let the payouts get in the way of making the best decisions and giving yourself the best chance to win.
Medium and large stacks
If you have a medium or large stack there is more you can do. It’s not much different from playing in the stages that led up to the final table. You want to attack the stacks you can bust or cripple and avoid confrontations with the stacks that can do you serious damage unless you feel you have the best hand. Sometimes a player will shift gears from loose to tight, or tight to loose, now that they have made the final table. If you see that someone is all of a sudden playing a different game, make a note of it and adjust.
It’s important at the beginning of the final table to relax and not panic. You’ve played for hours or days to get to this point and it would be a shame to let all that good play go to waste. The best thing you can do is to continue to play the same way that got you there, with a few adjustments based on the dynamics of the table.
Read part II