Final table tips?

[djshawk]

Hi All,

I just made my 3rd ever final table, this time in a $10+1. Coming into it I was 2nd with ~50k, leader had ~$120k, the rest were spread out. Blinds @1k/2k.

In my last 2 finals I busted 10th pretty quickly, despite coming in with a decent stack, so I was determined not to let it happen. I played cautiously but managed to steal during most orbits to keep my stack up there. We were soon down to 4, I had ~70k, two people had about ~120k and the other guy has ~40k.

From here on play was tight. I went pretty card dead so had to resort to stealing the occasional pot. One of the big stacks gave most of his stack to the other big stack so for a long while there were around 3 of us @~60k with him about ~180k.

This continued on and on and on, blinds reached 3k/6k, I kept telling myself to be patient, that I had ~10BB and that my opportunity would come. Despite this I decided enough was enough and I made a move:

I was in BB with KTo, UTG (~40k) raised to 12k. He had been getting a bit busy with steals the last few hands so I decided to try a stop & go. I called his raise, the flop came AAK and I moved in. Needless to say he showed an Ace and took the pot, leaving me crippled.

I guess I'm looking for tips on what I should be thinking about at this stage of a tourny. My experience this deep is very limited and I feel I learn a lot each time I get there, but that doesn't happen all too often.

Are there things you keep telling yourself to stop yourself doing silly things? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I won $188 which I should be happy about but can't help but think I should maybe have done better.

If you are still reading then thanks!

[The Don]

This is my standard final table strategy. Play tight... 1 steal or so each orbit until it is 6 handed when I change gears and really open up. I like your stop and go... you need to make plays like this if you are going to win tournaments.