KEY LESSONS FROM THE FINAL TABLE - PART 2 +25% DISCOUNT ON EBOOK AND PAPERBACK
| Daniel Addelman
KEY LESSONS FROM THE FINAL TABLE - PART 2
+25% DISCOUNT ON EBOOK AND PAPERBACK
"His book,THE FINAL TABLE,was on Gareth’s to-do list for a while, and then things lined up perfectly just at the right moment. The result is that aspiring tournament players across the globe have been gifted another poker strategy masterpiece."
Gareth share's key lessons from his book, 'The Final Table' so you can better understand how ICM and risk premium guide your strategies and also how you can set yourself up to improve your approach to final tables every single day.
"Over the last 11 years as a poker player and coach I've had the chance to observe, first hand, just how many mistakes are made on final tables, both live and online, and by both amateurs and pros alike.
The final table is the real business end of the tournament and mistakes you make at this stage can cost you hundreds, thousands or even millions of dollars.
2. What is risk premium?
Risk premium is the extra equity you need to call an all-in or to realise postflop. It's important because it affects your entire strategy on a final table from what to open and what to call to what to 3-bet and what to jam.
Let's start with a simple example.
You are dealt 66 UTG at the start of the final table and you have three bigger stacks in position on you.
As you can see from the table below, your risk premium (the percentage at the bottom of each cell) is higher against the bigger stacks than against the shorter stacks. The bigger stacks who cover you can bust you. The shorter stacks can't.
If you open too wide of a range in this spot, you will have to either:
a) fold a lot when one of the bigger stacks 3-bets or
b) play a hand out of position postflop against a player that covers you.
This forces you to tighten up your opening range in this situation. Notice how 66 is indifferent between raising to 2.1bb and just folding.
Your risk premium will always be the highest against the player with the most chips, i.e. the chip leader. This is true whether you're a big stack, a medium stack or a short stack. Take a quick look at everyone's risk premium against the chip leader - the column under BU 73.4.
As the chip leader, once you know and understand that everyone has a huge risk premium against you, you can apply a lot of pressure, especially to the bigger stacks (UTG, HJ and CO) who don't want to bust before the shorter stacks (EP, MP1 and BB).
They need to be able to realise more equity in order to get involved in a pot with you.
They will also have to play more passively because any 3-bet would give you the opportunity to 4-bet or 4-bet jam and put their stack at risk. The number of hands that can comfortably 3-bet/call or 3-bet/get it in in the CO's shoes against the chip leader here is incredibly narrow.
Practical tip: practise estimating your risk premiums against different players in different final table situations, and what effect this will have on your strategy.
