Wizards I beseech you - what’s a good basic strategy for last table, and how do I keep my head in the game at last 2 players? I just placed 2nd in a 20k SNG, but only because I kind of gave up. I felt I could beat the other player, but I settled for 2nd place. Not complaining, mind you, but how do I stay the course when it goes long at last 2 players?
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Most players don’t get there enough to get good at it. I would suggest playing a bunch of 2 seat SnGs until you understand the adjustments you have to make and are comfortable making them.
The 6-seat ones are good for final table practice too.
Just as a point of reference, you played an MTT, not a SnG. Multi-Table Tournaments have larger fields and start at a given time, Sit and Goes start as soon as the required number of players join.
Congrats on your 2nd place finish, that’s nothing to sneeze at unless you have like hay fever or something. Well done!
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Get to the position that your stack is the larger of the two, then raise all-in with any ace or king or better. Limp some hands, then if you hit a monster slow play it, then raise all-in on the river. If you pick up AA or KK, limp those hands. While ideally you want to get all-in with those hands, they are wasted if you just pick up the blinds, and if you limp, then opponent bets, you have more chance of getting him all-in, and over 5 cards the end result is the same, except that if you have KK and an A comes and he behaves like he has an A, then you can abort.
If opponent is the smaller stack and is raising aggressively, only call the top 10% of hands.
Above all, observe what opponent is doing, what his strategy is, and develop countermeasures to disrupt his game.
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The thing with me is, it starts to move too fast. I just start to get dizzy with the bam bam bam at 2 player. Couldn’t the system just add a few more seconds on to the clock when play gets down to the last 2? I know, you’re all like, “Shut up old man!”, lol! I think I need to do some 2 seat SnGs - like doing jumping jacks - to get into shape, lol! Thanks for those specifics, Mekon, I’ll keep that in mind.
I like Scarne’s advice…when you’ve got nothing or are beaten…fold. When you’ve got it…make em pay.
The problem I have sometimes is when I get down to heads up in a MTT and the field wasn’t too big but it still took awhile to get down to two. At that point the blinds can be quite high for the amount of chips I have so it’s hard in the small blind to just fold.
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Doug Polk says we should open like 80% of hands headsup! So like… fire away! 