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 whether or not to sandbag,
When deciding whether or not to sandbag, it is most important to carefully analyze your five-card hand. For example, suppose your hand is made up of three sixes, a four, and a three. Your opponents' hands must be made up from the remaining forty-seven cards, and the chances that one of your opponents will hold a pair of jacks or better as openers is considerably greater than it would be if you, for instance, held three kings, a queen and a jack. This is due to the fact that each jack, queen, king or ace in your hand has a diminishing effect on each opponent's chances of holding openers.
With the above in mind,
With the above in mind, we may establish a general principle that the best time to sandbag is when you hold three of a kind or better, when there are five players or more to act after you, and when your hand is composed of low-valued cards.