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
There's absolutely nothing wrong
There's absolutely nothing wrong with referencing starting hand charts, and talking to your poker friends about starting hands from different positions at the table. What you want to do as a successful poker player though is make sure you're really taking in all of the relevant and available information about any decision you're making at the poker table, and making the best decision possible. Having a process, or poker thought algorithm PTA, as I like to call it, is a great reference for successful decision making. A poker thought algorithm for pre-flop play looks something like this:
What is my hand?
What is my hand? Your actual starting hand and its general strength no matter what position you open from will sometimes trump all other questions. Mainly when you hold AA/KK.