need help late in tourneys

[blockafor]

I've been playing some MTT's on Stars lately. I've been doing pretty well, thanks to the advice on this forum, but I constantly get to a particular spot and then I'm lost. I'll get not too far into the money with usually between 10 and 20 BB's left.

My problem occurs when I have about 10 BB's left and I feel the urge to push or fold preflop. If I was a small stack, this would definitely be my strategy. However, even with only 10 BB's left, often my stack is average relative to the rest of the table with the exception of one or two big stacks. Should I be playing a different strategy when my stack is small compared to the blinds and antes, but not small compared to the rest of the table?

I hate for my fate to be decided on coin flips.

[sloth469]

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I hate for my fate to be decided on coin flips.

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Find a different game, they are a fact of life in Tourney poker.

[hurlyburly]

The most common adjustment I see is tightening up in LP (hoping for bustouts), then pushing in EP with air because of fear of the blinds, which looks like a bigger mistake than open stealing if its folded to you in LP/MP.

Tighten up as much as you can, but steal whenever you are able (ie. big stacks have already acted). Don't panic and overplay marginals in EP, weather the blinds and pray another rotation will give you some opportunities.

Most of all don't shoot yourself for making a bad move at this stage, go back and find out where you might have misstepped and figure out how to lose less and win more in the earlier stages when you had a deeper stack.