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Poker Tournament Final Table Strategy
Short stack vs. aggressive player with big stackAggressive play is your only option here. The reason you need to get aggressive is because you simply can't afford to keep folding to raises from the big stack. While this isn't a green light to duke it out with trash hands, you need to aggressively bet/raise when you have paired your hand and even when you're holding Ace high (if you think you've got the best hand, which is another one of those things that you just develop over time). The problem with this play of course is that it is high variance play, so with a short stack, this means you are going to be knocked out of a free poker game often doing this, so expect it to happen when you enter this mode. Short stack vs. tight player with big stackIf the big stack is tight, you want to get aggressive here as well and try to steal as many blinds as you can. Start raising with just about any hand short of trash until he starts to pick up on you. At that point, if you've gathered enough chips, you want to switch gears IMMEDIATELY and go into a more tight/aggressive mode rather than loose/aggressive stance. This is because the tight player will start calling you more often and you will end up paying him off when you overplay your hand. By changing gears in an online poker tournament, he will have lowered his starting hand requirements while you will have increased yours, so you have a better chance of dominating his hand. Overplaying your hand vs. a tight player is probably the easiest way to knock yourself out. If the tight player is calling you down, you should actively try to put him on a hand and figure out what he's calling you with. If you have absolutely nothing, then it's a very hard choice to continue betting or not. More often than not, I won't bet the turn or river if a tight player is trailing along. This obviously forces the problem of inducing your opponent to bluff you out, but most weak/tight players won't try this, so if they do bet, you're most likely beat Short stack vs. loose/passive player with big stackAgainst a loose/passive player, you want to lay off the aggression and see as many flops as you can with decent hands. A passive player will want to call you down and force you to show the best hand, so pre-flop raising with anything but the most premium hands is putting extra money into the pot that you can't afford. After you see the flop, you just want to bet if you have it and check if you don't. Basically, think of it as value betting - where you want to put money in the pot only if you're ahead. Trying to bluff out this type of player will only backfire. Most of the time, you're not going to encounter a loose/passive player at the end of the game because these types are weak players and will have only gotten here by luck. However, luck can go a long way in free online poker, so you will inevitably encounter these players who call anything. Medium stack vs. aggressive, tight or loose playerWith a medium stack, you'll want to play more or less the same as you would with a short stack vs. the different types of players in a free poker tournament. The one big difference is that vs. the aggressive stack, you will want to be less hyper-aggressive than with a short stack. With a short-stack, you're half gambling anyways since losing a hand pretty much leaves you with nothing, so you need to commit when you can. When you have a medium sized stack, you aren't in such a bad shape that it needs to resort to all-in plays. You want to check-call more with mediocre hands vs. aggressive players and raise only with strong hands. Against a tight player with a medium stack as well, you want to be
more aggressive than they are to win more blinds, but as mentioned
before, don't get too aggressive that you run into a trap. Big stack vs. aggressive, tight or loose playersWhen up against an aggressive player in an online poker game, you almost want to turn into the loose/caller player, and check-call all hands with moderate strength and setup traps with hands of big strength. You essentially want the aggressive player to hang himself with his own betting, so having the big stack gives you time to wait and setup a big trap. Bullying will be one of your most effective plays vs. a tight player, who will be very reluctant to go toe-to-toe with you unless they have a big hand. Your pre-flop raises should scare him out of enough hands that you'll chip away at his stack and force him into a hyper-aggressive mode soon enough. At that point, you probably want to re-adjust your game and play premium hands, then let him play back against you with weaker hands to take him down. Against a loose player, you're still going to find them calling crap even with a short stack often enough, but at this time, it's appropriate to pre-flop raise them with good hands and just force them all-in when you can. The reason is that you're most likely going to be the favorite with a premium hand vs. a random hand that the loose player players, so this is a good situation to have your hand all-in vs. his. Also read:
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At the final table of an online poker tournament, stack size is
critically important because of the fast pace and blinds, so your style
of play will definitely depend on your stack size and of course
opponents.