Tied 1st in ranking series before last event, what's my strategy?

[-moe-]

So I'm playing this month long ranking series, which has approximately 30 active participants. I'm practically tied at the top spot with one other player, and we have a gap down to 3rd place. There's one tournament to go. 1st pays a $4500 ranking bonus, 2nd pays a $3000 bonus.

So all that counts for me in this last tournament is obviously to place ahead of the guy I'm tied with, and I'm scratching my head over what my strategy adjustments should be?

In case it matters, the other player has been playing extremely tight, all the way from the start since the ranking series started. He will often let himself be blinded down all the way to the felt, so "out-tighting" him seems difficult.

[tomek322]

Get some chips in the last tournament. Go over to him and make a deal.

[Darkens1]

At first, you just need to play your normal style with regard to how you build your stack in tournaments. If you are winning/tied for the lead you probably don't need advice on how to do this!!

To answer fully, we need more info.

1. Do all places pay some points

2. You say you are practically tied for the lead but which of you is ahead (by whatever amount that may be).

Obviously, you need to watch his progress. For example, if you have the lead and he is eliminated early, then you need not worry about him any more.

If he builds up a large stack early, then you have got to take some calculated risks in order to overtake him as a tight player will likley hang on for quite a while if they build a stack.

One strategy you could try is catching loads of big hands, playing them aggresively and having them all stand up to win monster pots. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[-moe-]

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To answer fully, we need more info.

1. Do all places pay some points

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Yes. There's been around 25 players participating lately. Last place then pays ~250 pts, 1st place pays ~1350.

(Points are given according to the following formula:

250 * (sqrt(nrparticipants) / sqrt(pos))

..so it gets exponentially higher for higher finishing positions.)

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2. You say you are practically tied for the lead but which of you is ahead (by whatever amount that may be).

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I'm 40 points ahead. This is such a slim lead that we are in practical terms basically playing a last longer bet for $1500.

So I guess my strategy question can also be stated as:

"If you were playing a last longer bet vs 1 other player, where the prize pool was insignificant compared to the size of the bet, would you make any strategy adjustment compared to your normal game, and what would they be?"

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If he builds up a large stack early, then you have got to take some calculated risks in order to overtake him as a tight player will likley hang on for quite a while if they build a stack.

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Good point.

[Darkens1]

Basically, when you are playing to place higher than another player with no real interest as to how you place in the tournament outside of this, you need to keep as carefull a watch on his stack as you do on your own.

If you are behind him, you will want to play in a way which gets as many chips in the pot as possible. Lets say there are 3 limpers in front of you and you have AK off in the small blind. The "standard" play here is to make a sizeable raise as you have a good preflop hand but one which will be tricky to play out of position if you don't hit. My normal play would be to raise to 5-6 bb there. Here you might like to make a smaller raise to invite more players in the hopes of winning a big pot.

As with all decisions in , you are looking at the risk/reward. If you are eliminated before the other player, you will loose any chance of your reward. The better your chance of outlasing this player the more value your continued participation in the tournament has.

So in general, you should be risk averse when you have more chips than him and more willing to gamble when behind.

[-moe-]

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So in general, you should be risk averse when you have more chips than him and more willing to gamble when behind.

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The tournament is over now, but thank you for your advice.

This is pretty much how I played, as I was coolered a few times early on (KK vs A5s, an opponent rivered a flush, J8 limped in SB, made trips on the flop, opponent again rivered a flush), which took out about half my starting stack.

The other contender for the ranking series win did on the other hand double up early with AA flopping a set.

Instead of tighting up, I then tried to see more cheap flops than I would usually do, with suited connectors from MP etc.

I could only do this for a little while, though, as the blinds got high enough that I was left with 8-10 BBs and had to start looking for steal spots or hands with good showdown value to push from LP.