Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
When deciding how you will respond
When deciding how you will respond to an opponent who opens from the cut-off with no callers in-between you, the same poker thought algorithms need to be applied as in previous situations.
How often is your opponent opening from the cut-off?
How often is your opponent opening from the cut-off? If they open on the lower end of an opening range (24% or less): Keep your 3-betting range a bit tighter, unless they have a really high fold to 3-bet percentage (67% or higher). Keep your flatting range even tighter since they will tend to have decent hands more often than most opponents and you don't want to be stuck flopping second best hands against them. b. If they open on the wider side of an opening range (31% or higher): Have a decent 3-betting range, but still much tighter than defending against an open button raise. Something in the range of: A2o–ATo, A2s–A9s, K8s–KTs, K9o–KTo, Q9s–QTs, Q9o–QTo, J9o, J9s. Don't always 3-bet every one of these hands. You want to increase or decrease this range also based on how often your opponent is folding to 3-bets. The ideal being someone who is opening too loose, and not re-defending enough with a reasonably high fold to 3-bet percentage (somewhere over 65%).