Here is the situation. Bet 21 sit n go 3 players remain, button on seat 1, you are seat 3. 1st & 2nd pay. hand 10 so elimination coming on 16. Seat 1 20,000 bets 2,000 Seat 2 28,500 bets 3000 You seat 3 bet 3,000 Dealer has 10 up and seat 2 surrenders 15 Seat 3 has hard 5. Do you surrender to keep the correlation, or since there are 6 hands before elimination make the normal play of hitting?
Not sure if there's a 'correct' mathematical analysis here, but generally speaking, with 6 hands to go, i could care less about the finer points of correlation. i think its a mistake to spend too many hands worrying about jockeying for position, since there are bound to be many swings in that time. There are many more valuable things to be done in that time, dependant on the betting habits of your opponents. With 5-6 hands before an elimination round, i am more likely to be in the process of chip accumulation, flat betting to wait out bad players, and the like -- but jockeying for minute positional changes is not on the radar. just my two cents. -hd.
next-to-last-hand How about the next-to-last-hand, is it recommended to correlate as strongly as if it was the last hand? Or still some exceptions?
next-to-last hand is typically played just as strongly as the elimination hand itself -- its your last chance to make any positional changes, correlations, etc you need to make to make sure you are not in the last few spots entering the final/elimination hand. Depending on how late into the tournament you are and your position on the final/elim hand, you can determine how high your BR needs to be. For instance, on elim hand 8 with 6 players at the table and mid/late position, you can afford to be anywhere in the top 3-4 spots and still be comfortable going into the elim hand.... however, hand 25 or the final hand of a traditional tournament with 2-3 players remaining, you better damn well be in 1st place going into that final hand, position be damned! -hd.
