When you are in the late stages of a tournament you are usually feeling a bit better because you've made the money.

At this point you have to refocus and concentrate on the task at hand ... and that is winning the whole anchelada !

I've been playing sitngo's and mtt's since 2005 and it almost always boils down to the same 2 things for me during this stage of the tournament.  They are, maintaining my focus and patience.

By this stage in the tournament you've been playing for sometime.  Of course that time depends on the number of players you started with but either way this is the latter part of the match.  Some players tend to tire a little, some might start to play very aggressive to ‘finish' the tournament and some might tighten right up.  Its very important at this point to maintain your focus and play the cards you are dealt.

If you are the short stack at this point I would lean toward pushing with a reasonably good hand.  Hands like Ax, pairs and paint hands like KQ, KJ, QJ are good.

The gap concept is huge at this stage of the game.  It takes a much better hand to call a bet than it does to raise or push with.

When the stacks at this point are relatively even it has been my experience that  patience and ‘picking your spots' here will provide you the best opportunities to win.  There is usually alot of all in bets and folding at this point.  Why all in ?  Well I think its bets to always put your opponents to the test.  Put the decision on them.  Do they want to call for most or all of their chips.

I follow this principle during the late stage of any tournament I play.  Key to this though is knowing your opponents but not underestimating their abilty to shift gears as well.  Most of the time you've eliminated most of the gamblers and weaker players so you should assume the players left wont be falling for any ‘tricks' and that they are players with some skill.

Playing in the late stage of any tournament is all about focus and patience.  Remembering the gap concept will help you to pick your spots and perhaps steal some valuable blinds.  If you double up at this point in the tournament your usually eliminating someone else.

Playing this style late in a tournament will help create opportunities for you to win.