5CD MTT: End game strategy

[Tom Bayes]

It's important to keep a viable stack in these games. To be able to play more than a push-n-pray game, you need to be able to be in a position to make a normal sized raise, have enough of a stack to get people to lay down hands, and to be able to get away from your marginal hands if someone comes over the top. Too many players get whittled away when the blinds get large (and often the tables get down to 4 or 5 handed as well) and either get forced to play for their chips with a weak hand or get their money in with a decent hand but get knocked out when someone in a blind wakes up with a good hand or is willing to take a shot at outdrawing you and knocking you out because you don't have any chips left to make them fold after the draw.

Yeah, it's a balancing act between being aggressive but not being loose to the point of recklessness. I feel it's very important to figure out how the 2 players to your left react to various raises (min-raise, 3xBB, pot), since these will be the main players that you will try to steal from. If they are tight, min-raise and steal until they fight back, then back down unless you have the goods. If they always defend with weak pairs and draws, then expand your raising range and make them call bigger raises and exploit their calling station ways. If they are LAGgy and resteal, don't be afraid to make a stand with a so-so hand; while you can easily muck two pair against some players, AA can be a hand to go to the mat with late against some of the LAGgies. And don't get outdrawn or coolered [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]