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
In the Beginning
In the Beginning Most poker players have huge holes in their pre-flop strategy, but aren't aware of it. Some of this is out of a lack of knowledge, and for others it can be because of too much ego. Believing you can play almost any two cards and outplay your opponents ends badly in a lot of situations. In some situations that may be absolutely true of course, but in many cases it's not. Everything begins with pre-flop play, and mistakes made in this part of the game only get compounded on later streets. So having a solid strategy is paramount in long term success in no-limit Texas Holdem.
Starting Decisions
Starting Decisions Based on my observations and conversations with students, and fellow poker players, it seems that most players got their understanding of what hands to open raise pre- flop, cold call, and 3-bet mostly from starting hand charts, poker discussion, and some trial and error. A lot of players I've asked started with some sort of hand chart to begin with, and slowly weaned themselves off into a pre-flop strategy they feel works best for them.