Congratulations, you have made it to the final table.

Ahhh, I remember my first final table. It lasted all of one hand. I got pocket sevens, went all in under the gun, and got called by Aces. At the time, I was delighted at winning $60. Now, of course, such would not be good enough. Any tournament player should at least be looking towards the final table as their goal whenever they enter an MTT. Merely cashing in a tournament is not worth the time that has been invested in it. With usually about 60 percent of the buy-ins being shared at the final table, simply making it to the final nine will be a financially-rewarding experience. And every player eliminated from that point forward will be shouting “cha-ching!” in his or her head.

I have called today’s piece “Low Stakes Final Table” because, although I think the lessons learned here are accessible to everyone, it is aimed at players who are yet to make or have only made a few large field final tables. Today, I am going to focus on some of the critical mistakes made by players who get overexcited at the prospect of their first final table.

Not playing the game that got you there

To get to a final table you have to play some aggressive poker, make some big lay downs, win a few coin-flips, and suck out now and then. Sometimes, you can watch in awe as someone runs over your table, only to watch them throw it all away and donk off their chips when they get down to the final nine. Getting to a final table can be too much pressure for some, and all of a sudden they look down at pocket kings in fear of losing to a rogue Ace, when normally they would be doing cartwheels and putting people all-in.

The final table pressure can negatively affect players in one of two ways:

Self-Destruction

Panic! The pressure has gotten to you and all of your logical strategic thinking goes out the window. All of a sudden you look down at any Ace or any pair and throw all your chips in the middle and hope for the best. Either that, or you start chasing 7-high flush draws which leave you crippled when you had such a nice stack.

Burying your head in the sand

Even the most aggressive players at the table can turn passive and try and hang on for dear life. Knowing that the longer you stay at the table will result in a higher payout can often manifest itself in a plain refusal to play hands, or playing very strong hands such as AK or QQ timidly because of a fear of getting cracked. These same players will really over-bet their monster hands because of a fear of being rivered. And they have an acceptance of picking up the pot as it is, rather than maximizing the value of their hand. The players who adopt this mentality will be funding the aggressive players, giving up blinds, and laying down the best hand more often than not.

Playing the game that got you there

To completely contradict myself (as I often do), some players do not adapt to the changing dynamic of the final table to their advantage. Small pot poker is no longer by the time the final table arrives, and limping with speculative small pairs and suited connectors is very damaging to your stack when you have to fold to the raise and the re-raise after it. Calling after the flop with any type of draw is also not very prudent. In fact, calling, in general, is a very bad idea. Aggression wins the final table. You shouldn't be playing a hand if you cannot envision seeing it all the way down to the river.

Not stealing blinds is also a critical error at this stage, because they are so big in comparison to your chip counts that you need to be stealing them just to stay afloat. I won't go into any more detail about this because I did so last month (Any chance you could put a link here Ryan? To my previous article).

Over-valuing pot odds is another common error of the player who has just recently discovered what pot odds are. Let me give you an example that sums this up nicely: Last month I was at the final table of a game where I was dealt AQ in the big blind. The chip leader raised to 12,000 and two people went all-in after him. I had about 9,000 chips left after my blind was posted, which meant that with the blinds and antes includes I would have been getting nearly 5 to 1 odds to call with an arguably strong enough hand to do it. So the pot was begging for me to call. (Realistically, we have to put someone on AK – at least in the three that acted before me – but let’s ignore for this discussion.)

But what about the real money odds I was getting to not call? With three people all-in, the chances were at least one was saying “goodbye”, which instantly would have moved me up the prize money ladder. In this particular instance, the chip leader caught quads and busted both the others out, which added $1,000 to my actual prize money. So, I was getting 50,000 chips if I had called and somehow won with a hand I suspected was dominated, but I actually got $1,000 in real money for folding there.

To win a final table, you have to be selectively aggressive. Determine who at the table is about to self-destruct, who is hanging on for dear life, and who has brought their “A” game. You want to avoid playing pots with the guys that know what they are doing and the ones that are ready to shove with anything. Look to bully the medium stack players into folding – these are often the guys that are happy to give up their blinds knowing that they have an entire orbit to wait for a hand and watch others go out. Don’t get involved in multi-way pots unless you have a really big hand. Let the other guys take each other out and wait for a better spot where you can control the action by being the aggressor.

When the action gets three-handed, don’t call any bets unless you have a monster. Either raise or fold. People are so reluctant to get in a pot three-handed because they tell themselves that they will loosen up when they get heads-up. The chip leader and second chip leader will often make an unconscious agreement to check down their missed flops because they want to face each other heads-up and are fearful of what they can do to each other before then. At this stage, the short stack at the table can really make up a lot of ground by going all-in every hand, knowing that neither of the other two wants to double him up. Unless you have a great hand your strategy at this point is to make people fold. If you don’t think you can make them fold, fold yourself.

The only time you should be making a loose all-in call with a weak Ace or Broadway hand is when you significantly out number them in chips. If you have 10 times more chips than them, maybe you have to make a loose call with something like KJ, when losing the hand won’t take away much of your advantage and won’t double them up into a contender. Better to call an all-in with KJ when you have 15 times their chips than calling with QQ when you only have double.

Chops

Right around the three-handed stage, people will start talking about making a deal. I personally don’t do chops. I want to play for first prize, and second or third place is usually enough consolation should I not get it. I won’t go into a discussion about whether making a deal is a good or bad thing, because it depends entirely on the person. What I shall say is that if someone offers you a deal or likes the sound of one, you can bully them at the table, especially if it is three or four-handed. They have essentially told you that they have a fixed figure in their head of what they would be pleased to go home with, and they are probably willing to hang on to get to that figure. Put them all-in on their big blind every time you get a chance.

Heads-up is a completely different experience altogether, one which I couldn't do justice here, but may focus on at a later date. Until then, keep playing in Sit-and-Gos because that should be able to put you into autopilot when you do finally get through a massive field down to two players. At which point you should be playing to win, because that’s the only thing left to do.