Online Poker Tips :When is it Appropriate to Chop in a MTT Tournament?
Getting to any final table is a great accomplishment in poker. When you get down to the final three or four, the play can get difficult and the swing from first to third is still pretty dramatic. Regardless of the chip lead that you have, there are times that you have to start [...]
=============
Article Content:
Getting to any final table is a great accomplishment in poker. When you get down to the final three or four, the play can get difficult and the swing from first to third is still pretty dramatic. Regardless of the chip lead that you have, there are times that you have to start thinking about doing a chop and taking the safe way out to ensure that you don’t lose too much money with one mistake.
One situation where you may want to start to discuss a chop with the table is when you know you are overmatched. Let’s face it, some people just don’t have what it takes when it gets down to this amount of poker players to make the moves that are necessary to take down the tournament. When you look around the table, even if you have the chip lead, and see that each of these players have been outplaying you all night long it is time to start talking.
As the chip leader, you are actually in the strongest position to discuss a chop. For those that are short stacked, the added income will usually be welcome and you are locking up a second place finish for the most part. In most cases, you will want to recommend a weighted chop that will allow you to get more money from the prize pool since you have the most chips. Make it reasonable and you will often find that the rest of the table will be receptive regardless of how good they are.
Another situation to consider chopping is when the blinds have started to dominate the stacks. You never want to be in a position where you are forced to be all in or close to it when the blinds start coming around. If the stacks are even, everyone else is probably thinking the same thing. Take the prize pool and divide it up evenly by the remaining player and let everyone walk with second place money. The swing is too great from first to third to take the chance that you will look down at 72 when the blinds hit your stack.
Some people will consider the thought of even thinking about chopping to be a sign of weakness. However, they have probably never walked away from a tournament after having a chip lead with a bad beat that sent them out in third place. If you have that happen once, your opinion of a chop changes.
Something else to consider if the table seems a little reluctant, but the chip counts are fairly even is to divide up the chips and leave a little extra for the winner. For instance, there are four people left and the prize pool has ,000 in it. Everyone is even, but people still want that big payday. You can suggest to chop the pot to a four way split of ,500 with an additional ,000 going to the overall winner. Everyone agrees, play will loosen up because that fear of getting knocked out with the bottom pay is now gone. The winner still walks away with more money than everyone else and everyone is a winner. Sometimes chopping is not such a bad idea.
———————
Tags:Add new tag, Chips, MTT Tournament, Online Poker, poker, Poker Games, Poker News, Poker School