3 Final Table Tips To Help You Win The Whole Thing | Upswing Poker Level-Up #65

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

Ready to level up your final table skills? I’m Mike Brady and I’ve got two time Super High Roller Bowl champion, Tim Adams here to help you navigate the most critical stage of a tournament.

Tim Adams (00:11):

Hey, my name’s Tim Adams. I’m really excited to share some of my knowledge. I am quite experienced at just getting to final tables so I think I have a lot to share.

Mike Brady (00:20):

Tim has prepared his top three tips that will help you close the deal when you make a final table. But first I need to mention that Tim’s new course Modern Tournament Mastery is out now on Upswing Poker. Join this week to get his three hundred dollars course Super High Roller Mechanics as a totally free bonus. We’ll talk more about the course a bit later, but you can also learn all about it at the link below. So Tim, what is your first tip for final tables?

Tim Adams (00:52):

My first tip is to always consider or to think about the configuration and how future hands may play out. So that’s one thing an ICM solve won’t plan for it since it’s just solving for this hand. It’s not going to consider future hands. So that’s a really important thing. Like, what’s your seat position? So you have to use a lot of your own critical thinking skills.

Mike Brady (01:12):

What’s an example of kind of planning for a future hand while playing a hand?

Tim Adams (01:17):

Say there’s a really close spot. I’m not saying make any crazy deviations. Of course there’s like tons of nuance in this. But again, if you look up an ICM solve and say a certain play is winning a few percentages of the prize pool, so say it’s a bottom call. If you call and win, say you’re in the middle of the pack, which is great. But if you call and win and you’re in the middle of the pack, but the chip leader is to your direct left, well that may shift how great that actually is. So of course you’re always thinking about how your future hands go, your future rounds. Well, it’s going to really limit how much you’re able to open. If the cheap leaders to your left, they’re going to three bet you a lot. They’re going to call and you’re going to have to play postflop, you’re going to fully passive, under realize equity, they get to realize equity really well.

(01:59):

So you’re very restricted in that scenario that I’m describing. So those are the type of things you should be considering.

Mike Brady (02:04):

So in that example, you might sacrifice a chance to maybe double up to become a bigger stack because even if that happens, you’re kind of handcuffed with the chip leader to your left. So rather than take that close spot to get all-in, risk your tournament life and maybe double up, you might be a litle bit more likely to fold. Am I understanding that right?

Tim Adams (02:26):

Again, there’s tons of nuance in this and I’m not saying fold a hand that is winning a considerable amount. I’m talking more like your bottom call offs. If they’re winning a little bit, maybe that, again, there’s tons of nuance in this and I’m speaking very general, but say Ace Jack off in this particular spot is a call that it’s winning point o five of the prize pool. Winning in a spot maybe you shouldn’t pass up on. Again, tons of nuance in this, but maybe this is a spot where you fold because again, gaining those chips and your future hands look quite … How should I say it? Well, you’re restricted and it’s a less desirable spot compared to say if the chip leader was across the table.

Mike Brady (03:10):

And I guess the other side of the coin here might be if it’s a spot where taking that risk might allow you to put on that pressure yourself. Let’s say it’s a close spot, you’re considering three-bet jamming or just calling or maybe even folding a particular hand preflop. I know we’re being very general here and by doubling up, you would then become the chip leader and you would now be able to abuse everyone else at the table. So maybe you would take that three-bet shove option even though it increases your chance of busting in that moment. If you were to double up, now you’re the person running the table.

Tim Adams (03:46):

Yeah. I would apply it specifically to when you’re debating calling an all-in. But again, we’re speaking general, but these are the directions you should be thinking about, like who’s at your table … or maybe it’s a chip leader that’s very passive. These are all things you should be considering. And a lot of the times if it’s an eighth-handed final table, it’s really hard to predict what will happen. But if it’s three-handed, four-handed, you maybe have a better vantage point to make these type of deviations that I’m discussing.

Mike Brady (04:14):

So far in this tip, my takeaway is it’s not just about the mechanics and the specifics of that specific hand. This is not happening in a vacuum. The tournament isn’t ending the very next hand. What you need to think about is several steps ahead. I think about like billiards players, how they think like ten shots ahead when they’re hitting the seven ball in the corner pocket or what have you. In this case, we’re thinking, okay, I can call here, I can raise here, I can fold here. If I take each of these actions or this one risks my stack, this one doesn’t, what’s going to happen in the next hand and the next hand and the next hand? How is this table going to be configured? Who’s on my left? Who’s on my right? What is my stack going to be compared to the rest of the field?

(04:58):

And then bring that into your decision in the current hand.

Tim Adams (05:02):

Right. At the end of the day, it’s a strategy game, right? You’re not just going to be blindly following say an output. So these are all the things you should be considering. So yeah, I think you nailed it.

Mike Brady (05:10):

Before we move on to the next tip, I think it would be helpful for our listeners and viewers to get one really tangible example. Do you have one that comes to mind?

Tim Adams (05:18):

Yeah. To be honest, these spots are so specific, but funny enough, Stevie and I do break down a hand at the Triton London final table that we reviewed. Stevie was a guest coach specifically for that. And we analyzed a spot that actually Doug played where he probably had a bottom call off and we thought it was particularly good because it would’ve made him one of the chip leaders with position on the other chip leaders. So that’s a spot that I recommend checking out.

Mike Brady (05:49):

Yeah. You know what? Let’s actually go ahead and run that footage from the course right here. If you’re listening on audio platforms, it might be a little tricky. We put the video on Spotify and Apple as well. So if you’re able to watch a video right now or go over to YouTube, you could check it out. Might be a bit tough to follow along though on audio, but on video, enjoy this kind of preview from the course where Doug has these pocket Eights, faces a jam, and he decides to make that bottom call off that Tim and Stevie go on to say is a reasonable decision given the future gain.

Tim Adams (06:20):

Okay. Here we are at the final table. So we have a thirty-three B average. This is already the second hand and we’re going to have a spot to discuss. So we got Doug on the cutoff with just over … Well, he has twenty-seven blinds. He’s going to come in for a min-raise. We have Jean-Noël Thorel on the button. Forty-five blinds, he’s out of there. James Chen with sixteen folding and now it’s Ike with exactly twenty in the big blind.

Announcer (06:58):

Announcer: Doug Polk does have the covering stack cutoff versus big blind.

Tim Adams (07:04):

So Ike rips it in and already this is going to be a hand to discuss. So right off the bat, Doug has a very close spot. I think with Eights versus a twenty BB rip, I believe this would be roughly the bottom pocket pair to call. I think Sevens would be a fold. I would roughly call something like Ace Jack off, Ace Ten suited and probably Eights. But one thing to think about as Doug here, since this is very close, you just have to ask yourself a few questions. Since the ICM solve may say Eights is a call, but you have to ask yourself, what is the ICM model not accounting for? Number one, field quality. So you have to always ask yourself, that’s the most simplest thing. What does the final table look like? This particular final table is clearly stacked so he doesn’t want to make too many deviations, I don’t think.

(08:06):

Number two, which is really, really important and can easily get overlooked is his table position for future hands. So Doug’s always going to ask himself, what does call win look like and what does call lose look like? Well, call lose. Obviously he’s going to be fairly crippled, so that’s pretty crappy. But when he calls and win, it’s not all created equal, right? If he calls and wins, he will be second in chips. He will have position on Jungle, Stevie and myself, which is quite advantageous compared to if magically Jungle and Stevie in particular were to his left, then his future game would look far, far worse on a big stack. So that’s something to at least consider as Doug, which might swing the pendulum towards folding or calling in a really, really close spot. So Doug does call relatively fast. This is the second hand of the final table.

(09:02):

So he could have done some prep work the morning before and kind of knew this was a spot that he might encounter and he maybe thought about the things that I was just discussing, but Ike now has Tens and is in really, really good shape.

(09:20):

Loon must be absolutely loving this as the shorty, seeing a collision already on hand two.

Announcer (09:27):

Announcer: Covered. And a clean runout …

Tim Adams (09:32):

Ike now doubles. Now Doug is on roughly seven blinds.

Stephen Chidwick (09:38):

Stephen: Not always the worst thing to be short. Obviously he would prefer to have won. But as far as future game goes at a nine-handed table, when you have seven big blinds, you’re inherently going to have a really big win rate just the way you can leverage your stack and other players have to risk potentially much more. They’re going to call a shove from you. You get the dead money if the ante is in there and you have the least ICM pressure on you.

Mike Brady (10:05):

Hope you enjoyed that preview from the brand new modern tournament mastery course out right now on upswingpoker.com. Again, if you get this amazing new course by this Friday at midnight, you also get Tim’s bonus course, Super High Roller Mechanics totally for free. That’s actually going to cost three hundred bucks starting on Saturday, so make sure you move quickly there. So Tim, you brought on a couple really close friends to help with this course. They just got a quick look at Stephen Chidwick, arguably the best tournament player in the world right now. He got brought on as a featured guest coach, but that’s not the only friend you tapped to help out with this one, right?

Tim Adams (10:42):

Yeah. Daniel Dvoress also joins who’s been my best poker friend for the last ten years. I can say he’s attributed to my understanding, my rise in poker a great deal. He’s extremely knowledgeable. He’s the guy I bug about ICM questions, about preflop questions. And for me, he is the best coach out there. There are a lot of great coaches out there, but I’m going to be a little biased. Dan is the best of the best.

Mike Brady (11:10):

Yeah, maybe a little Canadian bias, but that’s okay. We won’t hold it against you. So yeah, if you are a serious tournament player, you really can’t miss this one. I’m incredibly excited to see the reaction to it and I hope you enjoy it. Head over to upswingpoker.com. The link is in the description below if you want to check that out. Moving on to tip number two, Tim, take it away.

Tim Adams (11:30):

Big stacks are easy targets at times. Nowadays, I do think people are more ICM conscious than ever before. I think even casual players are adhering to a lot of just rules under ICM. And because of that, I do think big stacks are taking it really, really far at final tables with some really aggressive play, which if I’m thinking exploitatively, really opens them up if I’m say a short stack or a middle stack.

Mike Brady (11:57):

So just from that brief explanation, the way I’m taking it is the chip leader at a final table can’t bust in this hand. They cover everyone and that fact allows them to exert a lot of pressure on the rest of the players. And I think especially facing a normal average human poker player, that’s probably a pretty good thing to do as a chip leader because they’re going to really shrivel up. A lot of people reach a final table and they do a lot of folding. They don’t really get in there and battle. They just try to kind of ladder up and survive and wait for those top ten, five percent of hands. And if you’re a chip leader, that really provides an amazing opportunity for you to just steal blinds after blind, put in three bets and just take down a lot of small and medium pots.

(12:42):

But what I’m hearing from you now is that that actually provides an opportunity to target that chip leader to pick up some much needed chips for yourself as a short or medium stack.

Tim Adams (12:53):

Well, again, I’m always going to say the same thing, a lot of nuance in this, but chip leaders, of course, they get to leverage their situation. That’s clear. But what I’m trying to say is a lot of the time, let’s just do an example, because this is, for me, that’s the best way to speak about some of my thoughts. So say you’re at eight-handed to final table, say there’s a thirty BB average. Say the cutoff is on fifty blinds and they’re the chip leader. Say the stacks behind them are roughly on average, thirty blinds, but the big blind, that’s you, has twenty blinds. Say the cutoff is supposed to at equilibrium open something like King Eight offsuit. But what I often see on streams are people opening things like King Three offsuit, King Four offsuit. So all of a sudden this forty percent VPIP that they’re supposed to have turns into something like fifty-five, sixty percent, which is a lot.

(13:43):

So that’s what I’m trying to entail is number one, as the big blind, we want to make sure we hit our aggression factor at equilibrium, which would be under ICM we have a premium of winning the pot without showdown, not going to the kind of scary unknowns of postflop. So we play aggressive re-steal strategy. A lot of our hands are maybe a little unintuitive. We use a lot of like middling suited, like Ten Nine suited type hands, Jack Nine suited, good at getting dominating combos to fold, have okay equity when called, get to realize all our equity, all that good stuff. But what a lot of the chip leaders are doing is they have a bit of an imbalance with their RFI strategy since they’re opening this King Three off, King Four off and it’s not like they’re supporting that loose RFI with a looser call off.

(14:25):

So my point is there is an imbalance because of all those points that you made where against a lot of human players, it makes a lot of sense for the cutoff to have a lot of wild and aggressive opens because people aren’t fighting back enough. So my tip would be not only to nail the equilibrium solution, which is to fight back with a lot of aggressive re-stealing, but potentially expanding versus someone who you think has that imbalance.

Mike Brady (14:49):

And just to be clear, re-stealing in this situation off of a twenty blind stack facing that fifty big blind chip leader open, that’s primarily going to be by jamming, right? We’re not like three betting non all-in so much.

Tim Adams (15:00):

Well, yes and no. I mean, yes, you would potentially be expanding your inducing range and would have more bluffs to compensate. But yes, what I was specifically meaning was re-jamming aggressively, making sure you hit not only the equilibrium approved combos, but potentially expanding versus a chip leader who’s overdoing it. A lot of the chip leaders, they’re smart. They understand that their utility in the future is very, very good. They want to keep winning chips with little resistance. So a lot of the time what I’m seeing is loose opens and as maybe a medium stack or a shorter stack, we can actually fight back a little harder with making their choice binary. You jam on them, they can’t really do anything. They can either call or fold and a lot of them aren’t expanding their call offs, they’re folding. So basically there’s a lot of room to navigate as a shallow or a mid stack in this example that I’m giving.

Mike Brady (15:53):

Yeah. You’re kind of giving our listeners and viewers some more power here as those short and medium stacks where they otherwise might kind of shrivel up, like I was saying before. It’s kind of interesting your point there from the chip leader’s perspective, how they widen their raising range, but then they don’t also widen their call off range versus the re-jam. And I think that kind of ties back to tip number one, right? Because even if it is a profitable call, they do the math and it’s like slightly better. They run it in Hold’em Resources Calculator, whatever software and they find that their particular hand, let’s just say like Ace Eight offsuit for an example, is a profitable call in that situation against the short stack jam. But by calling, they’re now risking twenty of their big blinds, that would bring them down to thirty if they lose.

(16:41):

Now they’re one of the middle stacks and that amazing scenario that allowed them to raise with a wide range suddenly evaporates. So these tips kind of tie in together a litle bit where you’re targeting a chip leader who is going to be protective of their future game situation and they’re not going to call off as much as they maybe should, even if you continue to kind of bully them back.

Tim Adams (17:05):

I mean, yeah, you nailed it. You did a great job of combining the two. When I was making the points, I didn’t even consider that, but that’s really sharp.

Mike Brady (17:13):

All right. Nice. Glad to hear it. That’s why I’m here. All right. Moving on to tip number three, what have you got for us?

Tim Adams (17:18):

When you go into a final table, just try to enjoy it. Having those soft skills to kind of like loosen up a little bit. Yes, there’s quite a lot of pressure sometimes, but kind of all the hard work is done, leading up all your prep work where this is the fun part. That’s what I try to at least try to trick my brain into thinking because I personally think I play my best when I feel a little more relaxed when I’m not gripping the card so tight, I’m not having huge expectations. I’m going in there feeling prepared and ready and kind of letting things play out as they may. I just want to focus on playing my best. So that’s the last tip is to just really try to enjoy the experience. At the end of the day, when you look back on it, it’s probably going to be a memory.

(18:02):

Yes, you cannot win every poker tournament, but to just go in there and let things flow to you, let things come to you.

Mike Brady (18:09):

I think this is going to be one that is easier said than done for a lot of people, which is interesting because coming from your perspective, you do do a ton of prep work. You’ve spent many, many hours in like Hold’em Resources Calculator and other tools. You study with top players and you frankly make a lot of final tables, right? That’s why you’re making an Upswing course, otherwise you wouldn’t be the guy we brought on, right? And for a lot of other people, they’re rarely making a final table.This is like a monumental moment for them, but I still think the tip applies to them. It’s just maybe harder to actually execute. But I mean, worst case scenario, you’ll lose the tournament and bust in ninth, right? If you went into the tournament and were told you were going to get ninth, you probably would be pretty stoked.

(18:56):

If you were ever a short stack, there were probably times where you would kill to get ninth. So I think taking the stakes out of it to some degree will help people. Just remember, you’re just playing poker, you’re getting two cards. Let’s just chill out, watch the hands play out, watch everyone else being stressed. It’s fun and you’re going to be stressed too, but that’s just poker for you sometimes. And I think when you’re able to kind of unlock that and even if you get ten percent more relaxed, your decisions are probably going to get more than ten percent better because you’re not going to be putting so much pressure on yourself and the results.

Tim Adams (19:28):

Yeah, I think that’s great. Exactly. I understand and it’s for me as well. I’m not pretending like I go in there and be like, “Ah, whatever happens, happens.” Usually I’m tired, I’m stressed because maybe the stakes are high or it’s an especially high stakes final table. And yeah, I’m not trying to say that I don’t go in there feeling stressed, but I’ve tried to trick myself to at least calm down a little bit. And like you said, maybe it makes your … If you’re ten percent more calm, that’s a great way to phrase it is it’s going to help you exponentially play better. And that’s what I’m trying to relay here is, of course, I’m not trying to say deny your emotions because that’s also a thing where you’re just tangled up. You’re like, “I’m going to love this. This is like whatever happens, happens.” But to, like you were just saying, tone it down a little bit.

(20:14):

It is just a game at the end of the day. Yes, this financially could mean a lot, but you’re not doing yourself any favors if you go in thinking you have to just close that out and win. I’ve been there where I’ve played not my best. I played my C game going to the final table because I was a chip leader and I thought I had to win.

(20:32):

And if I could go back in time and put myself in that place, I would tell myself, calm it down a little bit, take the one hand at a time, be in the moment, and that’s what I’m trying to relay to you.

Mike Brady (20:44):

Yeah. I think it’s very easy in that scenario as the chip leader to put too much pressure on yourself and expect like, “Well, it’s on me to win. It’s mine to lose.” When in reality it’s like being the chip leader going into final table just means you’re going to win it a bit more often than everyone else, right? It doesn’t guarantee anything by any means. One random note that might be helpful for some of the lower stakes live players in particular out there who are watching or listening to this, this was advice I think it came from Andrew Moreno a few years ago. It’s anti-chopping advice and I think this is a really salient point for this discussion. I think it’s really tempting when you’re playing, let’s say you play a two hundred dollars daily at your casino or whatever, you get to the final eight or final six or whatever and everyone wants to chop and sometimes there’s a lot of pressure to do it, but that’s like really invaluable experience that you’re passing up on by chopping in those situations.

(21:38):

And I highly recommend, unless it’s like a really tough social situation for you or something, to not chop, to play it out, get that experience because you never know, maybe that two hundred dollars final table, that experience you get when you’re only playing for a few grand, maybe that becomes a real asset for you when you’re playing a thousand dollar tournament that you decide to shot take and you’re playing for actual money that’s going to impact your life. Having that experience is just so critical. And if you’re just chopping every tournament that you get five handed to, you’re never getting that experience down the stretch. And I think that could actually cost you a lot in the long run.

Tim Adams (22:14):

I think that’s sharp as well. Yeah. Experience is invaluable and the more you have it, the more times you’re just in the chair in that spot under even pressure, the more comfortable you will become with it. So yeah, I think that is a sharp point by Andrew.

Mike Brady (22:30):

Yes. Thanks to Andrew Moreno for that point. I appreciate having that to call back on and thank you, Tim, for joining us for these last couple episodes. It’s been very fun. If you haven’t already watched the ChatGPT analysis episode from last week, highly recommend it and I even more highly recommend the Modern Tournament Mastery course out right now on upswingpoker.com. Be sure to get in there as soon as you can. The longer you wait, the longer it’s going to be before you’re a top tournament player yourself. Check it out at the link below.