Open Raising Late in MTTs

One of the biggest leaks I see a lot of tournament players doing is open raising too much late in a tournament, when most of their raises are obvious "steal" raises.  Especially in an online tournament, where the blinds and antes will be a large portion of your stack, you need to be smart about raising to steal blinds.  You of course don't have a choice in your raise size if you're short stacked, because you only have one move.  If, however, you have 20 big blinds or more, you should be finding the MINIMUM raise size necessary to make blind steals, and raise that amount whether you have a hand, or you're stealing from the cutoff with j7 off suit.

At a lot of online tournaments, this raise size can be as small as 2.25-2.75x the big blind (sometimes even doubling the blind will get the job done). I personally like to raise 2.5x the big blind nearly always, EVEN when antes have kicked in. Why? Because it works. I risk a very small amount of chips, and if I'm first in the pot, I'll be taking down the blinds a large portion of the time. If I'm called, I still have a hand, or I may even steal it on the flop. 

A lot of people tend to think that if you raise more, then you'll discourage action. Really, the size of the raise isn't as important as the ACTION itself. If you raise, a person behind you is unlikely to call, or raise, unless they really have a hand. If your opponent has AK, and will likely push in, they're going to do it whether you raise 2.5x the big blind, or 6x the big blind. Again, it's not the amount, but the ACTION.

The point though is to maintain constant aggression, while risking the smallest amount possible. If you are raising 3, 4 or even 5 times the big blind with a hand like KT, and then someone pushes all-in over the top of you, you'll have to fold (unless you have odds to call of course), then you've risked a much larger amount, where the 2.5x raise would have accomplished the same thing.

I see this constantly though late in a tournament (at various different stakes), even today as a matter of fact. With only ~25 people left in an online MTT (which I won btw :) ), a guy raised 5x the BB from the button. The guy in the BB pushed all-in, and he folded. What a waste of chips.