How to play the extreme shortstack at the final table?

[KuQuAT]

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You don't mention the payouts. For example how much money do you gain by moving up each place? If it's significant, its even more incentive to wait for premium hands and hope 2 or 3 guys get knocked off before you even play a hand.


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Another factor is the rate of escalation of the limits. Are limits going up by time, but #hands (e.g., every 8th hand, no matter how many people have busted out, per a sit-n-go), or by orbit (every time the button moves to seat 1, the blinds go up)? If it's by time, is it fast or slow. If it's very fast (rare in cash tourneys, but happens in some freerolls), then while you may have more than 10xBB now, that won't stay true for long and you should shift to the all-in game early.

Put another way, measuring your stack in big bets is less meaningful if the size of a big bet is about to rise quickly.

[skierdude1000]

Sorry, I should've mentioned that. Blinds go up every 20 minutes

4-8, 5-10, 8-16, 10-20, 15-30, 20-40, 25-50, then some other levels i don't know right off the top of my head


David, the prizes go out as follows

1 - 175
2 - 90
3 - 60
4 - 45
5 - 35
6 - 30
7 - 25
8 - 20

[davidross]

I'm pretty sure that you have no desire to just sit back and hope to move up 2 places and win $10 more then. You want to win, so I would not play any sub par hands yet, hope for a good situation to pick up chips without a showdown, or to double up with a big hand. WHen you fall below the 10X number you need to take more chances, and recognize that you have an excellent chance of stealing blinds at that point. If you let your stack get too small you don't scare anyone anymore and you will be called.