All of the big prizes and money in a poker tournament are at the Final Table. Whether it is your local daily or a World Poker Tour Main Event, understanding the unique strategy adjustments for Final Table play is vital to finishing strong.

Often players are unprepared for the pressure that comes with playing in front of an audience, when their goal is in reach, or having potentially life-changing money at stake. When facing the pressure of big pay jumps and the studio lights seem a little too bright, it’s important to stay focused and make objective decisions.

To show you how the Pros think while on the big stage we are giving you EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to a Member-only video for a limited time!

To make sure you are prepared to shine for the TV cameras and show off your poker skills, watch and take notes as LearnWPT Instructor and WPT Commentator Tony Dunst goes through his thought process and decision-making from his World Poker Tour Tournament of Champions final table appearance.

BONUS: Join for just $5 your first month and gain access to our library of over 500 videos including parts 1, 3, and 4 of Tony's final table review. Click the above button to get started!

Tony's Final Table Tips ✏️

Here are a few tips to help sharpen up your game for showtime!

• Be aware of stack sizes and pay jumps at all times, even the slightest changes in stack sizes can shift strategy dramatically
• When short stacks exist, there is extra pressure on the bigger stacks to avoid busting out
• The chip leaders can use this extra pressure to win many pots while the short stack is in play
• As a medium stack vs larger stacks be cautious with any bets and raises and try to take marginal hands to showdown passively
• Preflop ranges shift quite a bit at final tables due to this effect with big stacks playing much wider ranges and medium stacks much narrower ranges
• Do not be afraid to ramp up your aggression against poker players that are playing tight in the hopes of laddering up
  

📓 LearnWPT Tour Term: ICM

You've probably heard the term ICM. But what exactly does it mean?

Independent Chip Model: noun
\in-də-ˈpen-dənt ˈchip ˈmä-dᵊl\

1) A mathematical model for calculating the real money value of chips in a poker tournament at a given stage. ICM is used most often at final tables during deal making to calculate a fair distribution of the remaining prize pool in relation to the number of poker chips each player holds. Abbreviated as ICM.

Example of ICM in a Sentence
Johan and LuckyChewy decided to make a deal based on ICM and then played heads-up for the trophy.

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On Tour With Tony Dunst!

This video is part of the LearnWPT Exclusive On Tour with Tony Dunst Strategy Episode series. Join Tony for a behind the scenes look into the most thought provoking hands he plays from real WPT events and teaches poker strategies and concepts you can use in your game.

Creating and structuring a study routine is an important part of your growth in poker. Check out some tips from Tony to avoid burnout and stay sharp on the felt.

Click to learn more about Tony's extensive poker accomplishments and more importantly, how he can help improve your poker game.

Ready for more? Join LearnWPT for just $5 your first month of Membership and get full access to more poker content from Tony Dunst and Team LearnWPT.

We'll see you online,
-LearnWPT

Poker legend and LearnWPT Instructor Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger used his steady and mindful poker approach to become a $100,000 buy-in WPT Alpha 8 Champion, WSOP Bracelet winner, and secure more than $11 Million in live poker tournament earnings.

He doesn't compare himself or his progress to anyone else's, but rather works on strengthening his own poker skills. Due to his dedication to learning and improvement LuckyChewy has been an innovative catalyst for new poker strategies throughout his entire career. By adopting a meditative attitude he is able to execute optimal strategies under tremendous pressure, providing a key balance for his analytical and collaborative approach to learning and playing poker.

LuckyChewy's opponent in this hand was another legend, Daniel Negreanu, one of the most influential and successful poker players worldwide as well as a favorite of poker fans with his distinctive and fun personality. Having played poker since he was a teenager, testing his skills and moving up in levels while plugging leaks and studying the game, he eventually became the youngest player to win a WSOP Bracelet at 23 years old, eventually winning 6 WSOP Bracelets. Daniel is no stranger to success on the World Poker Tour® as a 2 time WPT champion and WPT Season III Player of the Year, which helped him amass over $45 Million in tournament earnings.

As the subject of a LearnWPT Strategy Episode, LuckyChewy reviewed a hand he played against Daniel Negreanu in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl and explored some strategic ideas as a result of how this hand played out. LuckyChewy describes exactly what he was thinking after flopping a huge hand with millions of dollars at stake.

This video is part of our High Stakes with LuckyChewy Strategy Episode series where Chewy takes a deep dive into his most interesting and useful hands from real WPT and WSOP Final tables and teaches strategies and concepts you can use in your game.

In this ultra-high stakes tournament, LuckyChewy opened 2.5x the big blind, effectively risking what's in the pot with the blinds and antes. Daniel elected to 3-bet to 27,000, or 9 big blinds total. LuckyChewy had a fairly straightforward call with pocket fours and flopped a bottom set with a backdoor flush draw on the A♣9♣4♥ flop. With the in-position player having the range advantage, LuckyChewy checks and Daniel bets around one-quarter of the pot.

LuckyChewy decided to raise slightly more than 3 times his bet, knowing that Daniel is not likely to reraise him with anything because he already had the range advantage. With this stack depth, it's not recommended to play aggressively against LuckyChewy’s range, as he's quite polarized. There's not any reason for Daniel to raise, because if he has a strong value hand he prefers the opponent to keep bluffing or betting his weaker value hands. Daniel does call and the turn is a texture-changing card, the 2♣.

Based on the solver study, LuckyChewy initially thought this was a card that would encourage Daniel to slow down on, use smaller bet sizes to not bloat the pot. The solver actually recommends a larger bet of around 2/3 of the pot as you should push an equity advantage on a card that's better for you than it is for your opponent. However, if you bet a larger size, you would get way more folds than the solver prefers and your opponent is expected to fold hands as strong as AK.

The deeper you get into the game tree, the more assumptions you have to make about how your opponent would respond in order to determine the appropriate action based on the recommended strategy. The key in understanding the equilibrium approach to poker is to employ proven strategies, based on the program algorithm, to minimize the chance to lose.

LuckyChewy elected to use the smaller bet sizing and Daniel continued with a call. On the 8♠ river card Daniel shoved all-in. A shove from a hand such as A4s would be very perplexing and you're not likely to benefit from shoving with a hand like this as part of a balanced poker strategy. However this is one of those nuanced scenarios where the raise is mandatory, so you can reach equilibrium as the in-position player.

These are interesting conceptual ideas that do exist in a theoretical sense and familiarizing yourself with why these abstractions may occur through solver study is fascinating. If your opponent got here with pocket eights they would likely shove all-in. There may be some bluffing with pocket tens and jacks, so you would assume it would be more advantageous to bluff with stronger club blockers.

The simulation LuckyChewy used to analyze this hand would argue against that, as it's shoving all its flushes as the in-position player. Hands such as pocket tens and pocket kings where one of the cards is a club, as well as hands with AK with the K♣ or AQ with the Q♣, are considered bluff shoves from Daniel because it doesn't seem likely that LuckyChewy is bluffing. Considering the odds he was getting and the strength of his hand, LuckyChewy made the decision to call it off. Much to his dismay, Daniel did have K♣J♣ for the nut flush.

Although it was a painful hand to lose, LuckyChewy says through analyzing this hand with a solver post-game he realized how much better that turn was for him than it was for Daniel, regardless of the fact that they had a relatively equal distribution of suited hands that could make a club flush.

We hope that observing LuckyChewy's poker insights, strategies and concepts will be beneficial to you and boost your own game!

Click here to learn more about LuckyChewy, his accomplishments, and more importantly... how he can help improve your game.

Ready for more? Join LearnWPT for just $5 your first month of Membership and get full access to LuckyChewy content.

We'll see you online,
-LearnWPT

In order to maximize fold equity and to utilize a powerful move to adjust for the shallow stacked situations, we recommend adding the check-raise to your overall game-plan in otherwise standard....... C-Betting spots.

Adding the Check-Raise to your overall game-plan will help maximize fold equity and give you a powerful move to adjust for shallow stacked situations.

When you're the preflop aggressor and you frequently follow up with a c-bet, it can be a very strong strategy as you can directly counteract attempts by opponents to exploit you on the flop. However, c-betting can leave you very vulnerable when you are betting out on the flop after being the preflop aggressor with your entire range or with a high frequency.

This strategy may give opponents behind you an opportunity to easily raise you, put you all-in, or simply raise a significant portion of your stack so that you end up being unable to continue against that aggression. So if you are c-betting with a very high frequency in spots where you can't continue because of stack sizes, your opponent can effectively get the last bet in and raise you so you're unable to create any further fold equity in the hand.

In order to prevent this from happening, you can adjust your overall c-betting strategy based on stack size and you can introduce the check-raise as part of your game plan, which can often reclaim fold equity that wouldn't exist on the c-bet. In order not to get exploited, you should utilize this strategy with an overall balanced range.

Consider this example that illustrates why check-raising can be a better play than simply c-betting:

The blinds are 500 and 1,000 with a 100 ante, it's a 9 handed table, it folds around to you in the Cutoff seat, you have 8♦9♦ and 21,500 chips in your stack. You open to 2,500 chips or 2.5 big blinds, the Button calls, both Blinds fold and the flop comes 10♣7♥3♠ rainbow, no diamond.

So now you have an open-ended straight draw, there's 7,400 in the pot and you have 19,000 back. Your stack size might leave you vulnerable, so if you bet 3,000 and your opponent puts you all-in for 19,000, there's going to be nearly 30,000 chips in the pot and it would cost you 16,000 to call so you would have about 32% equity calling this all-in.

However, you need more equity than that in order to call, as the real danger in this spot is flopping a hand that has a lot of equity. With this c-bet leaving you incredibly vulnerable, if you use a 100% c-betting strategy with this stack size you're going to be very exploitable.

Consequently, if your c-bet gets raised and if you can't continue even when you're flopping a lot of equity, that might mean that this is a bad spot to be c-betting with a high frequency.

Instead of c-betting, if you check, your opponent can check behind, or even more commonly, they would take a stab at this pot. In that case, if the Button bets out, you can see that you have a very natural stack size now to check-raise all-in.

You are now leveraging your stack size to create fold equity on this check-raise and you can get the last bet in on this flop, giving your opponent ample opportunity to fold a good portion of their range. If they don't fold, you still have 8 outs to improve to a straight.

So, when you're holding a draw on the flop and c-betting leaves you very vulnerable because of the stack size, you can opt to check-raise instead. When stacks start to get smaller in tournaments, having a very high c-betting frequency can often be a counterproductive strategy for you, especially against opponents who are aggressive, floating you or raising your c-bets frequently.

Against opponents who are very passive you should start c-betting these spots if they're playing fit or fold, calling preflop, or not putting pressure on you postflop. However, if you are playing against opponents who are raising your c-bets or floating you, introducing the check-raise into your arsenal will counter their strategy.

C-betting is one of the most common problem areas for both amateurs and Pros.

You will spend most of your time figuring out when you should c-bet or employ tricks such as check-raising. There are a variety of ways that your opponents might try to counter your c-bets.

They can call your c-bet on the flop with the intention of taking the pot away from you on the turn, which is called floating. To counter floating you can respond by betting again on the turn with an appropriate frequency.

Your opponents can also try to counter your c-bets by raising them in position or check-raising when they're out of position, so you should expand the range of hands that you're willing to take to a showdown against them.

You can adjust by calling their raise on the flop, or simply by calling with your top pair hands instead of folding them on the flop, which is going to punish those raises and you can continue to expand your range.

In addition, opponents might try to counter your c-bets by leading into you, so you should float them yourself, call them on the flop in order to take the pot away from them on the turn, or you can raise against this lead.

Implement these winning poker strategies in your own play and learn how to maximize value as the first-in raiser with these key adjustments!

......................................................................................................................... ..........................TRAIN - PLAY - THINK LIKE A PRO!

LearnWPT Instructor Tony Dunst has been a model of consistency on the live poker scene, including most recently his deep run in the 2019 WPT Tournament of Champions.

Tony's online poker resume is no exception and we're excited to share this in-depth look at a recent deep run in a 1,000+ person online tournament.

Tune in as Tony shares his thought process as he navigates unknown opponents at the Final Table and identifies key adjustments for managing pay jumps and applying pressure to less-skilled opponents.

This video is part of the LearnWPT Exclusive On Tour with Tony Dunst Strategy Episode series. Join Tony for a behind the scenes look into the most thought provoking hands he plays from real WPT events and teaches strategies and concepts you can use in your game.

Click here to learn more about Tony's extensive poker accomplishments and more importantly, how he can help improve your game.

Ready for more? Join LearnWPT for just $5 your first month of Membership and get full access to more content from Tony Dunst.

We'll see you online,
-LearnWPT

We all make mistakes due to lack of focus, loss of motivation, or because we are simply unprepared. Thousands of hours studying hands and playing in pressure situations should make decisions easier over time, but even the best players in the world make mistakes when it matters most.

The key to improvement and avoiding these mistakes comes from being a student of The Mental Game.

In Strategy Episode 58, Jared introduces us to the concept of The Mental Game and why players of every skill level should add these strategies to their study routine right now!

Gain access to our full library of Mental Game Strategy Episodes from Jared Tendler right now when you join LearnWPT.com as part of your $5 First Month Membership!

We'll see you online!
-Team LearnWPT

Thousands of poker players from every corner of the world are ready to descend on Las Vegas to test their skills and chase the fame (and cash) that comes with winning a high profile event.

Like many of these poker players, you’re happily counting down the days to the summer tournament season and preparing for glory. You’ve got your backpack, headphones, comfortable sweatshirt, and a few buy-ins to go along with all your dreams of success on the felt.

Your dream of being a champion begins…

You sit down in your 1st event and you are dealt A♥K♥ in late position(yes!).

You raise and get one caller. The flop is a dry T♦6♠2♣ and you fire out a continuation bet.

Your opponent wastes little time and puts in a continuation raise.

You fold.

A few hands later, it’s the same story…. raise first-in with a premium hand, c-bet, get floated. Turn card is no help, you have to check fold.

Sound more like a nightmare? It doesn’t have to be.

That’s why we’re giving you this exclusive access to a full LearnWPT Strategy Episode where LearnWPT Lead Instructor, Nick Binger outlines the adjustments you need to make when C-betting against Tough Opponents.

This is your opportunity to plug a leak in your game and to chase away those fears that may keep you up at night.

You’ll be back to sweet dreams of becoming a champion in no time!

Good luck and good playing!
-LearnWPT

P.S. Ready for more? Join LearnWPT for just $5 your first month of Membership and get full access to more content from Nick Binger and the LearnWPT Team of Pros.

When we created LearnWPT.com our goal was to provide a place that empowers players to ask questions, help get them focused, and provide a solid game-plan to bring to the table every time they sit down.

Some of the ways we accomplish this is by:

• Presenting and teaching examples of proven, winning concepts through Strategy Episodes (short 10-15 minute instructional videos)
• Providing a place where Members can send questions to receive answers and guidance with the Ask a Pro Feature
• Giving Members the ability to record, save, and send real hands they’ve played to receive expert analysis of their play using the Hand Input Tool
• Monthly Q&A Webinars with the LearnWPT Instructors
  

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