Playing at the Final Table

If you’ve played correctly, played good hands, and not taken any bad beats, you will get down to the end game. The Final Table Play is a totally different game.

I consider the end game any time you are down to 4 or 5 players and the BB is 100 or higher. There are very specific rules to play by in the “short-handed” game, and I am going to tell you how to play, so that you can win, more often than not.

Steal the Blinds!

Once it gets down to a short-handed game, and the blinds are 50/100, it is time to watch what you play, but more importantly, steal the blinds on a consistent basis.

First off, you will need a decent hand. What’s decent? With 5 or less players playing, the hands usually aren’t going to be very good. Now granted, you have the same odds of a 72os as AA coming out as you do in a full ring. But, there are only 5 or less people seeing hands, not 10, so effectively, the odds are cut in half.

There are less hands out there is what I’m trying to say. So, a decent hand usually has at least one high card in it, A or K. At least. If you are suited, that’s even better. If you get a pair, or a top 42 or 24 hand, even that much better. What you want to do, now that you have a decent hand, is steal the blinds.

The key to success at this point of the game is to build a bit of consistency. Do everything quickly. Press the buttons as fast as you can with no deliberation. That is the key. Usually, I will not try to steal the blinds in a 5-person game unless I have a pretty good hand, or I am on the button, or one guy over and nobody previous has called or raised.

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The Final Table Play, and the battle for the blinds, is psychological more than actual card playing. In the end game, 2 people, the SB and the BB, put money in without seeing their hands. They may have KK or AK or AA, but more often than not, they have 83 os, 10 6os, or Q5. These are not good hands. These are folding hands.

You would most likely fold them at any other time during the game. You may play them when the blinds are 15, but at 100+? Think of how many crappy hands you fold, and also think of how many crappy hands you play because the blinds are small and nobody raised. During an entire game, there are a ton of hands like that.

Now, all of a sudden, you are putting 100 chips in, which may be a large percent of your stack, on a hand you wouldn’t play for 30. Plus, with 10 people in, 25 cards are theoretically going to be dealt if it goes to the river. That’s almost half the deck. In 5-man, it’s 15 cards. In 3-man, it’s 11 cards. 11 out of 52. That is not many.

Could you still pull a top 10 hand? Of course. If you do, you have to assume you are way ahead. In 4-man, there are only 8 cards dealt pre-flop. If you are dealt AA, KK, QQ, or AK, the odds aren’t good that you’ll be going up against anything worth playing. So it is a moot point if you get one of these premier hands. There is a way to play them, but I will show you how to play “decent” hands first.

Decent hands in the end game are usually anything with an ace or king involved. Two high cards are preferable, suited, even better, and any medium to high pair is a killer hand.

The way I play at the Final Table, all you need is one of these decent hands. I am going to analyze this in a 4-person game. With 5 people in, be very careful. With 5 people in, there are still going to be good hands out there. If you figure, in a 10-person game, there is, on average, 2 good hands per deal, and they are supposed to showdown; in a 5-person game, there is one good hand.