End game variance in MTTs

Multi Table Tournaments / Marcus Bateman / 09 September 2010 / 1 Comments

As MTTs focus most of the prize pool into just the top few places, consistently running bad just before the final table or just outside the top three places can make an absolutely huge difference to your bottom line.

Perhaps the ultimate bane of any good multi table player's existence is end game variance. Although variance affects all poker players badly, it is perhaps never more painful than when it hits you in the face late on in a tournament, where bad beats can literally cost you thousands of dollars in pay jumps after hours and hours of play.

As MTTs focus most of the prize pool into just the top few places, consistently running bad just before the final table or just outside the top three places can make an absolutely huge difference to your bottom line at the end end of the month (or year even). It is quite hard to ever get to the very late stages of a large multi table tournament, and when you do it is critical that you make it count and finish well. Alas, with poker having as much luck in it as it does, even the best players have consistently long periods of late game variance, and learning to deal with it is a hallmark of all the best tournament players.

In psychological terms, late game variance is much tougher to deal with than early game variance, simply because:

a) The amounts of money are tangible, in front of you, and getting much larger with every pay jump.

And:

b) You have invested a lot more of your time, energy, and emotion into getting to such a stage.

These two factors usually make late game variance much more brutal than any other form, and can send even very good players tilting very quickly. Some of the juiciest live cash games you will ever see form around the players who jump straight into a cash game after busting late in a tournament, and if you have just taken a bad beat deep in a big tournament you will nearly always be better off staying away from poker for a while just to let your psychological state recover - even if you feel used to taking bad beats in cash games or sit and goes.

All luck evens out in the end in poker, but arguably the one that takes the longest to even out is end game variance in large tournaments. The opportunities to get very deep in big tournaments are so rare, and the difference between failure and success is so small, that the variance at the late stages can be truly brutal. Make sure you keep a clear head if you bust out harshly deep - the tilt from such beats can often lose you anything you made in the tournament plus interest.

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Comments (1)

1. Yorkshire Pud | 09 September 2010

   Another great article Marcus, and something that has hit home to me recently as I am runnign terribly at the endgame of MTTSNG right now and it is starting to do my head in!