So.. your running into the late stages of the tourney where the blinds matter, you are sitting on a reasonable stack and the worst thing in poker happens!! You go card dead! Dont worry, I will help you through this aweful thing and you will find yourself still sitting on a nice stack much later in the tourney.

I recently decided to play the 45 & 90 player sit and go's on full tilt. The 90 player is a Turbo KO tourney.

I have to be doing something right, out of the 9 that I have played (a mix of 26$ and 75$ buyins) I have finished 1st 3 times, 2nd twice and cashed in 3 other spots. That is 8/9 and trust me, a whole load of card deadness has been along that path.

The worst thing that can happen in these things at the later stages is to be blinded out, and we wont let that happen!!

Being blinded out is in my opinion giving up!

So your in the later stages of say the 45 player tourney and have come down to about 18 players, the blinds are sitting at 120/240. Your stack size is approx 3000 and keep being dealt garbage. What you MUST do is look for an opportunity. I have used this technique in some large buyin tournaments and it rarely lets you down. If you have a tight player in the BB, flat call, and fire 1 bet on the flop regardless of your cards. He will miss it about 65% of the time and hit a hand he is happy to call with even less. If he calls, the hand is over. It is a dream to have a tight player to your right. Dont try this every round, He will eventually pick up on this, But you have risked minimum to get a free round. Here is a good tip: When you have noticed that he is fed up with your routine, use it to your advantage and play a strong hand the same way and de-stack him. He WILL eventually get annoyed at this play trust me, and will start shoving with middle to bottom pair. Just wait for the opportunity where you have a decent hand and its pay day.

The next technique which is useful to have and you need to mix into your play is "The blind steal" We all go card dead and this is one that can save your tourney life. It takes a while to feel confident with this one, but over time you will learn to trust it. I have been known play heads up tournaments completly blind for the practice. One evening a mate and myself decided to put these skills to the test I made 300$ profit playing a load of 55$ heads up tournaments on full tilt with all of my cards exposed. Sweet huh? My point is, looking at your cards does ruin your judgement. To be succesful in poker you MUST also play the situation. Again, do this every round and you are asking for disaster. So you need to mix it up all the time.

What you need to do next time you go card dead is: Wait for a situation where everyone has folded around to you on the button/cut off. Your cards should be covered as I said, it can mess up your judgement. Make the standard 2.5x-3x the BB raise. Once everyone has folded, which 2/3 times they will, have a peep and smile. Occasionally you will get a caller, well lets hope you have connected well. If not, well that is a part which I will have to cover in a different article. It is a mix of check/fold check/check ect. But that will be a new article.

Look at it this way: You have risked 2.5 BBs to win 1.5. If you do this 3 times. You have gained 4.5BBs and lost 2.5BBs. Thats +2 which is enough to get you a free round where you can see 9 more hands and get the chance to pick up some more chips. But it is not all lost, the one time you get a caller, you still may just take down the pot. So lets say this technique will give you a +2.5bb return on 3. Put that next to your flat calling in the SB and getting those blinds back, and you will find yourself back in good shape to go much further into the tourney.

It is VERY important to note that you should not get to a desperately low chip stack when you do this. People are more likely to gamble with you if you are low on chips, They look at it as they have alot less to lose. *WHICH DOESNT MAKE SENSE!* They are risking more to win less, it would make much more sense for them to make that play against a large stack because you are risking the same to win more. Whick looks more attractive? But heck, you try and explain that to the guys who make that play.

The only time it makes more sense to gamble against a short stack is when you have a semi-decent hand and he is all in pre-flop and you are getting great value on your hand with his raise, and your blind already comitted. Again, you explain that to these guys.

I hope this article has helped you all in some way or another. Feel free to comment or ask questions..

Best of luck on the tables from the Freezeoutplayer.com Team!