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
Bluffing
Bluffing When you bluff, you are trying to induce your opponent to fold what you are fairly certain is the better hand. You are exploiting what your opponent thinks is a transparent line. If he assumes you will check-raise the flop with only two pair or better, you should check-raise as much as possible until his opinion about that line changes. Many players think that extravagant bluffs define great poker players and make them huge winners. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I only remember two times in the last year when I ran a large, three-barrel bluff for my entire stack in a tournament. Large bluffs are not usually profitable in tournaments because if they fail, you are out. In a cash game, you can re-buy and get right back in the action, but in a tournament, you are just out. Since we know there is a lot of value in just surviving in a tournament, bluffing off your stack is always a big mistake. But not all bluffs are for your entire stack, and some are the most profitable plays in poker.
Before you even consider bluffing someone,
Before you even consider bluffing someone, you need to know what hands he is willing to fold. Some players will never consider folding top pair, and some will fold the second nuts if you apply enough pressure. In general, you should bluff weak players who always fear that their opponent has a strong hand. Also, if you know a player will call down with hands like top pair every time, you should never run a bluff on him. Instead, take his chips by relentlessly value-betting.