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 you value-bet late in a hand
When you value-bet late in a hand and you think your opponent’s range consists mostly of weak made hands like middle or bottom pair, which you beat, you want to bet an amount he can call. Suppose you raise K-Q from middle position and the big blind calls. The flop comes K-J-4. Your opponent check-calls and the turn is a 3. Your opponent checks and you bet again. If the river is something like a 3 and your opponent checks, you can be fairly certain you have the best hand, as he would have re-raised A-K pre-flop, and would have raised at some point in the hand if he had better than top pair.
You shouldn’t bet too large
You shouldn’t bet too large because your opponent probably holds something like a jack. He’ll likely fold if you bet pot, but will usually call 2/5 pot. This situation is very player-specific. It is important to know how your opponents play their hands, what size bets they will pay off and to what size bets they will fold. Some players will call larger bets because they view them as weak, and will fold to small bets because they think you are trying to sucker them. Because of this, you need to mix up your play from time to time and bet an amount that may not be optimal.