Poker Late Tournament Strategy
Late Position Early Rounds
Close Out the Win with Late Stage Tournament Strategy. Written by Haunted Poker for exclusive use. First of all, congratulations on making it to this point in the tournament. You’ve outlasted a good number of opponents, and you’re in the money. A strategy that I like to use often is late entering a poker tournament and try to pick up a big hand to shove with. If you’re lucky enough to run across a mid to high pocket pair or big ace, go ahead and shove, especially if you’re around the 10 big blind range.
Though it is often tempting to play marginal hands from late position in the early rounds of multi table tournaments, you should not expand your selection by much over middle position. As you need to raise when you do enter the pot in these situations, in most cases when you are the first in the pot from late position all you will win are the blinds, and they are not significant enough to risk running into a big hand.
If you raise with a hand like ATs and one of the blinds re-raises, what are you going to do? The correct answer is fold, but you may be in even worse shape if one of the blinds calls and there is an Ace on the flop. You have no way of knowing if your hand is good or if you are against AK or AQ. All of these situations should be avoided, especially early in the tournament.
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The list of hands that I recommend playing is AA KK QQ JJ TT AKs AK AQs AQ and AJs. These recommendations are only when the pot has not been raised before you. When you enter the pot, you should raise either three or four times the big blind to not let the blinds see the flop for free. Your largest advantage is acting in late position, so you will have the additional information gathered from the actions of your opponents after the flop before you must act. This also will let you control the size of the pot in most situations, as you can check, call or raise after your opponents.
If there has been a raise before you act, you should fold all of these hands except AA and possibly KK. I realize that this is a very tight strategy, but remember that this is early in the tournament and there is no reason to risk a large percentage of your stack without a very strong hand. I also recommend re-raising with AA and KK if you decide to play it. If you read that your opponent will call an all in bet, you should push, but if you don't think he or she will, you should double their raise. Getting all in pre flop with AA is the best possible outcome in this situation.
One situation to be very aware of is when an early position player limps into the pot and then moves all in after you raise. This is a very clear indication of a big hand. I will put an opponent on AA KK or at the worst AK or QQ in this situation. When this happens, unless the player is someone I am very familiar with and they have proven that they will make this play with a much wider range of hands, I will fold everything except AA. I will not risk my entire tournament at this stage by getting all in against a dominant hand.
If you play online poker tournaments, you are very familiar with late entry. The majority of multi-table poker tournaments allow for late entry with some allowing late entry for over an hour. While some people like playing a tournament from the start, others prefer to come in later in hopes of not having to play as long to turn a profit.
Today, we will take a look at late entry in poker tournaments and some strategies that you can use to try and win more money.
Enter Late and Play Your Normal “A Game”
If you late enter an online poker tournament with a slow structure, you may still have enough of a stack to play your typical A-game. This is particularly true with slower structure games that give you a healthy starting stack or tournaments with very low starting blinds.
For example, if your starting stack is 1,500 and you don’t reach 100-200 until the end of the late registration period, you can late enter and play your general A-game. Check out the structure of your event to see how many blinds you’ll start with and go from there.
Enter Late and Shove With Big Hands Only
A strategy that I like to use often is late entering a poker tournament and try to pick up a big hand to shove with. If you’re lucky enough to run across a mid to high pocket pair or big ace, go ahead and shove, especially if you’re around the 10 big blind range.
Most players will assume that you’re simply just trying to get lucky and will opt to call you light. You might also see larger stacks try and call you light because you can’t do much to hurt them. This is a great way to get an early double to get enough chips to battle with.
Enter Late and Show Any Reasonable Hand
Another decent late entry strategy is to try and get your chips in with any form of reasonable hand soon after getting to the table. Most any suited aces A-7 and up, any two face cards, and all pairs are good candidates for this type of shove.
Again, you’re going to find players that will call you light because they think you’re shoving with junk. Of course, if someone calls you with a better hand, you will often have live cards to try and get lucky.
Online Poker Tournament Strategy Late Stages
Enter Late and Rock Up
A strategy you will see some late entrants use is late registering for a tournament and then rocking up in hopes of making the money. This is often used in tournaments where the late entry period ends really close to the bubble.
Poker Late Tournament Strategy 2020
For example, I’ve recently been playing in a lot of online, freerolls on a site where the late entry period will end anywhere from 2 to 10 players from the money. It’s not uncommon to see someone come in at the last minute with a stack of around 8 big blinds and just HODL in hopes of cashing. Often, other short stacks or sitters get knocked out and the late entrant makes the money and a profit.
Which Strategy is Best?
The strategy that works best depends on the structure of the event. If the structure is slow and you have enough chips to make some moves, playing your A game will be the best bet. Otherwise, you should probably stick with something closer to playing fast with reasonable hands.
Coming in and rocking up or waiting for a big hand to try and double can be problematic when you don’t get cards. By playing fast with reasonable holdings, you give yourself a good chance to get lucky and get some chips to try and make a deep run.