So you’re short on cash. You spent a lot of time and energy to get to the final table. Now you’re there, but you have so little cash there isn’t much you can do but hope to get a great starting hand and hit something.

What should you do?

My advice to players in this predicament is to be VERY tight. Assuming the ante isn’t too bad but the blinds are high, you can probably stick around for a while if you don’t see many pots. The best thing you can do now is to stick around for a while and only play the premium hands.

The reason you should play tight is because you want to preserve as much of your capital as possible for the times when you do get a great hand. You also want to be very tight so that much of the action is between other players at the table. You may get lucky and have a few people get eliminated before you even have to go all-in.

The longer you can stay around, the better chances are that you’ll outlast a few other competitors. With each competitor that is eliminated, you get a bigger prize. It becomes a battle of attrition. Perhaps you will go all-in on a good hand and double up or better, but chances are, if you are far enough behind you won’t win. You can outlast. You can slowly work your way up as you get good hands. Chipping away at big stacks is always hard to do but when you get a good hand it’s exceptionally easy to double up. They will want to put you all-in.

When I say be very tight, I don’t mean don’t play any hands. I mean to just play the premium hands, don’t call past the flop unless you have really good odds, etc. Play a tight game, but don’t be afraid to go all-in when you do have a monster hand. You need cash, you’re still playing. You’re just not playing very much. Hopefully over time you will get that monster hand and double up or, heck, triple or quadruple up. But hopefully a few of your competitors are eliminated as you wait for that monster hand.

If you lose when you do get that monster hand, even if you were able to outlast even one competitor, than you haven’t done too badly.