Twice in the last week I've made it late in big MTT tournaments. Both times I made the money, but I've found a definite weakness in my game that I was curious how to address.

To give specifics, last night it was the final 2 tables, with only the final table paying. I was in 2nd chip position /w about 3x the average stack. The chip leader and most of the small stacks were at the other table. Most of the stacks at my table were about average or a little over.

I found myself having a run of lousy cards that were easily foldable, but I was basically just losing blinds. This let pretty much everyone else catch up, such that when we finally made the final table, I was a below average stack w/o having really gotten involved in many hands when it was 2-tabled.

I feel as if I'm not being agressive enough when it gets down to the end. A few times I made raises with JTo or Axo (the best hands I was getting), was popped to double my raise, called, and then blanked completely. That'll happen sometimes, but I feel I wasn't able to pick up enough blinds/antes to compensate for those.

Advice?

With mostly middle stacks you should have decent fold equity. If youve been at the table for a while you should have some idea of how those a few to your left defend their blinds. Pick your spots based on being first in and hopefully a soft defender.

Don't be afraid to limp or min-raise with drawing hands from EP and MP. Hit one and you will immediately get a boost to your stack and also the table is going to far more cautious about calling future raises of any size.