Tournament Adjustment When Getting to the Final Table

  What does it take to get through the early and middle rounds of a tournament? Well to thrive, it means winning hands on a regular basis and occasionally doubling up, but let's begin with the basics for tournament survival. For a player to tread water in a tournament, they must win the blinds at least once every round. Anything on top of this simply improves your position. Of course if you don't win the equivalent of the blinds every round, you enter minus territory, and your time in the tournament will be short.  Up until you get to the final table, you will be consistently facing off against nine different players. This means that in every round you have nine opportunities to earn the equivalent of the blinds and keep yourself alive. There is a luxury to this. A player with this many opportunities per round can afford to fold a few hands while waiting for some good cards. This condition changes when you get to the final table.  Each person who is eliminated from the final table is one less hand that round, one less opportunity to make money before you are in the blinds. When you are at the final table, you must lower your standards for what sort of cards to go into the hand with. If you are going to survive at the final table, unless you have a huge chip lead and can afford to wait and crush your opponents with premium hands, you are going to have to go into the pot with lower quality cards. Don't sweat this, your opponents are in the same boat. Just remember that luck may very well be the final arbiter of what ultimately happens.  Good Luck!