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
Represent Something
Represent Something When you bluff, much if not all of your value comes from fold equity. Your bluffs must represent strong made hands that your opponent can’t beat. If you play all your bluffs the same way, your opponents will quickly figure this out and call all your bluffs. I played someone four different times during the 2010 WSOP who would over-push every time he wanted his opponent to fold on the river and bet small when he wanted a call. After I figured this out, I made a point to get to the river with him every time I had some showdown value. I busted him in three events because he never varied his play.
When you semi-bluff on the flop or turn,
When you semi-bluff on the flop or turn, you are usually raising or check-raising for a fairly large number of chips. If you only take this line with semi-bluffs, your opponents will realize this and call you down. To avoid this, you have to take the same line with strong hands like a set or two pair. Suppose everyone has 60BBs. You raise 10-10 or Q-J to 2.5BBs from middle position and the big blind calls. It comes K-10-2. Your opponent checks and you bet 3.5BBs. Your opponent raises to 12BBs.