How to play in the late phase

The late phase is also called the push-or-fold phase. You are only confronted with a push-or-fold decision when ...

• ... you have 13 or fewer big blinds ...
• ... or when all the players behind you and all the players that have entered the hand before you have 13 or fewer big blinds.

If neither situation applies, we still play according to the strategies for the middle phase. There is a simple way to summarize both rules: if you can win or lose more than 13 big blinds in one round, you are not in the push-or-fold phase.

In the push-or-fold phase, you only have two options at your disposal. You either go all-in before the flop (push) or you get out of the hand (fold). This sounds easy, but it can be very complicated, because the decision depends heavily on your chip stack; depending on the situation, you can sometimes go all-in with a vast number of hands.

• The later your position, the more hands you go all-in with.
• If someone has entered the hand before you or has raised, you go all-in with fewer hands.
• The smaller your chip stack or the smaller the chip stack of the opponents behind you, the more hands you go all-in with.
• Always keep an eye on the table situation and observe who could become dangerous or who is under a lot of pressure.

There is a mathematical model which describes exactly which hands you should go all-in with. It doesn't just take into account the actual chip stack sizes, but also the implications of the possible chip winnings and losses for your ranking in the tournament and thus your effective money winnings. You don't play a tournament to win chips but to place as high as possible, after all.

The name of this model is the Independent Chip Model (ICM). It would be very complicated to deal with it right here and now, and you're probably not in the mood for a long-winded mathematics class. If you want to know more about the mathematical foundation of ICM, you can find elaborate articles on ICM in the advanced strategy sections. You can, amongst other things, find four starting hands charts for playing in the late phase, based on ICM, in the bronze section.

In order to give you a better understanding of ICM in practice, the software department of PokerStrategy has developed a learning tool. A couple of lessons should teach you which hands you can push with and when you should fold.

The first step, of course, is downloading and installing the software.

Download learning software for the late phase of a tournament here

Download the software and start the setup program in order to install the tool. Once you've started the ICM-Trainer, you can begin a new lesson by clicking on the Start lesson button - you can change the language by going to Extras > Language > English.

Start lesson

The program will now confront you with a game situation where you have to decide between going all-in (push) or folding (fold). You will always be the player named Hero in these scenarios. You'll see your cards and what the opponents in front of you did.

Who are you?

You also know all the stack sizes. Take a look at the situation and try to make the correct decision. After deciding, click on the button Push to go all-in or Fold to get rid of your cards. In addition, you'll receive tips and advice on the right side of the window.

Making a decision

The program will subsequently show you whether you made the right decision as well as displaying all the hands that you could correctly, and thus profitably, have gone all-in with. You'll see a listing of the complete hand range. For instance, in the example below, you should have gone all-in with every pair of twos or higher (22+), as well as any suited ace starting at A8s (A8s+), and so on.

The result

It's obvious that you can't learn the perfect strategy in 5 minutes. If it was this easy, your opponents would be able to play like that, too. Invest some time and play through the different lessons, it's really worth it.

Summary

The contents of this article are best understood when put into practice, so:

• Download the starting hands charts, print them out and follow them.
• Download the learning software for the late phase and play through it.

Each of the three tournament phases has its own strategy. The biggest difference between tournaments and other forms of poker is the fact that they're not about getting the most chips. In a cash game, you're always trying to make the decision that will bring you the biggest profit with your hand. In a tournament, you try to find the decision that will get you the furthest in the ranking. This is often quite a contrast - especially in the early and even in the middle phase, the right decision will often be: get out of the hand!

This is a fact that a lot of players have a hard time understanding. They're holding a good hand, so they push their chips into the pot and hope for the best. In a cash game, their move might even be the correct one, while being disastrous in a tournament, as it simply doesn't take into account that a tournament is a different form of poker with its own rules.

The third and last article of this series will deal with the game after the flop. You will learn which hands you should put pressure on your opponents with and when you should play passively instead.

Go to the next article: How to play after the flop

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Related articles: How do you play a tournament? How do you play after the flop? Forum discussion: Take a look at additional sample hands and let professionals judge your hands on this board