near the end

[Sundevils21]

This may be rediculous or completely valid, I don't know(maybe it's even been asked before).
I struggle with the late parts of MTT's when it's down to like 30 people or so. I just never seem to make the right plays. Does it make any sense(for learning purposes) to play a stars 2table tournament and fold every hand until the blinds start becoming pretty big compared to your stack size. The 5bucks or whatever doesn't matter to me if it would help. I don't know if it would help, or hurt though? What do you think?

[dmk]

It's just something you'll learn w/ time and experience. Think about when you first started, you didn't know how to quite get to the money, now you probably do that fairly often. Now you're not sure what to do once you're in it. Keep posting hands here, and keep playing, its the only way you'll learn. I don't think the 2 table SNGs will help that much.

[fnord_too]

The decisions get much tougher as you get deeper into a tourney, so don't feel surprised or bad that you are having difficulties here. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind at the end of tournies that may help a little.

For the purposes of discussion, say 41st is the bubble, 31-40 pay x, 21-30 pay 1.5x, 11-20 pay 2.5x, and 1-10 has the nice steep final table curve.

People tend to play tighter when they are about to reach a plateau (at 40, 30, 20, and 10 players left in this example). You can steal more blinds here, which really helps to build your stack. Be aware though that other players know this trick and watch out for them. Also, you have to respect raises and reraises a lot here, though less from those who are stealing wave obviously.

Right after a plateau is reached, people (especially short stacks) really open up a lot. It is not uncommon to be sitting on the bubble for 20 hands, then once the 41st player goes to see 5 other players go in the next 10 hands. You have to tighten up in these times since people are willing to gamble it up, and you don't want to gamble, you want to exploit advantages.

Even though the above should be no epiphany to anyone reading this forum, there are a lot of players who make it deep into tourneys who do not appreciate these two special time periods (which repeat at each plateau). It is key to know your opponents at this phase.