We’ll begin with full ring final table play. The table is 8-10 handed, and players either just arrived at the final table or have only been here for 1-2 knockouts so far. At this stage of the tournament, everyone is jockeying to move up a scale on the pay ladder, and short stacks are targeted by anyone with a reasonable shot at eliminating them without threatening their own position. We’ll look at a typical payout structure for a large field MTT and give the table chip counts so we can look at play from every possible stack size.
1st-$7025
2nd-$5175
3rd-$4000
4th-$2875
5th-$2075
6th-$1675
7th-$1275
8th-$875
9th-$550
Chip Stacks
Seat 1- $2,000,000
Seat 2- $1,600,000
Seat 3- $300,000
Seat 4- $1,000,000
Seat 5- $500,000
Seat 6- $800,000
Seat 7- $1,000,000
Seat 8- $600,000
Seat 9- $1,200,000
Avg. Stack- $1,000,000
Blinds/Antes- $15,000/$30,000/$3,000 ($72,000/round)
From the Big Stack’s Perspective (Seat 1/Seat 2)
You have nice, solid M’s of 15+, so you’re in no immediate danger of being eaten by the blinds. These are the type of stacks that can abuse medium stacks with 3 bets and floats to take nice pots from people who are at risk of being eliminated and falling short in the payout scale. An example: Seat 8 opens on the button to $78,000 with 44. Seat 2 (You) have QJo in the big blind, and elect to make it $300,000 to go. Does Seat 8 want to take what can be at best a coin flip in a spot where doubling up brings him to about average, but losing makes him finish with just $550, especially with one critically short stack and another very short stack behind him? You get a lot of folds from hands you otherwise would be taking a flip with in the mid stages of a tourney. Another example: Seat 4 opens to $80,000
