The Art of the Deal

If you’ve ever made a final table and felt unsure whether to chop or charge ahead for glory, ACR Pro Jeff Boski has your back. In this article, he breaks down five essential rules for live tournament deal-making. This isn’t just about squeezing out a few more dollars, it’s about understanding leverage, reading the room, and walking away with money and the photo finish. Boski dives into ICM traps, psychological tactics, and the underrated value of a trophy pic for your Social Media profiles.

In live poker tournaments, final table deals are very common.  Although they are not usually reported in winners’ pics on social media, they are more likely to happen than not.  If you are lucky enough to make the final table of a live poker tournament, these are the top 5 things that you need to know.

1. Never be the first person to bring up a chop.  It shows weakness.  Just like in a type of negotiation, the person who says their price first is at a big disadvantage.  Information is power.  Use the information presented to you to your advantage.

Many times you will hear your opponents make excuses such as, “It is late and I am tired and I just want to go home” or “The blinds are s o high it is just a crap shoot now.  I don’t want to gamble for thousands of dollars on coin flips.”  These are just excuses.  Stay strong and express your desire to play it out to the winner.  Say that this is a special moment and you really want to win the trophy and first place money outright. For example, “I am in the zone, I have a good feeling about this tournament.”

2. Chip chop or ICM chop?  Download the Tournament Cruncher ICM app on your phone beforehand so you are prepared to know what your stack is worth in an ICM heavy environment.  There is nothing wrong with asking for more than your ICM value.  ICM does not calculate skill advantage which you may or may not have.   Regardless, ask for more money and the worst thing they can say is, “No! let’s just play it out.”

3. Stay confident and respectful of your opponents in the deal-making process.  You don’t want to be their enemy in which they are spiteful.  You want to be viewed as a superior, more experienced competitor that deserves more than ICM value dictates.  When you decide to discuss a chop and make an offer or counter offer, stay stoic if they reject and say “OK, let’s play it out.”  This move will strike fear in most opponents.  There is still time for them to reconsider after you play a few hands and the magnitude of the impending financial swings kick in.

4. Choose your words carefully.  You want to inform them that you are more experienced and more skilled without demeaning their poker ability.  They can still be good poker players but if you have proven that you are better, then you deserve more than what ICM payouts dictate. Say things like “Big money difference between 1st and 4th place” or “Wow these are some big pay jumps, it would hurt to bust out next and only get $XXX”

Most humans are risk averse. Think about the show Deal or no Deal.  If you are down to the final 2 cases and they contain $1 and $1,000,000, the banker will offer you somewhere around $400,000 to take the deal.  While you know that your EV in this spot is $500,000, you must calculate the utility of that guaranteed $400,000 vs $1 and how it will change your life.  For instance, you could pay off all your credit card bills and maybe even your mortgage. 

5. The value of the trophy and the winner’s pic on social media.   Most live MTTs give out a trophy to the winner and share the pic of you with all the chips, the trophy and your winning hand for the world to see.  You can also use the pic to validate your accomplishment to your peers and use it as a nice profile pic on all social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, Snapchat, Tinder, Bumble, JDate, Christian Mingle etc).

After the deal is done, make sure you congratulate your opponents and always tip your dealers/floormen.  

Here is a video I made discussing “The TRUTH about Live Poker Final Table Deals! What they don’t want you to know! Secrets Revealed!”