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
To float is to call a bet with the intention
To float is to call a bet with the intention of picking up the pot on a later street. Floating is very tough to play against. You never really know where your opponent is in the hand because a skilled floater will call with strong hands, weak made hands and total bluffs. For example, if someone raises to 3BBs and I call in late position, I could have a fairly wide range. If the flop comes 8-7-3, my opponent bets and I call, I could still have a wide range. If he checks to me on the turn and I bet, I could still have a wide range. Once I bet the turn though, most opponents will have a hard time calling with anything worse than middle pair, and most won’t even call with that. In the example I could have 8-8, A-A, 7-6, 10-9, Q-J, 5-4 or some random hand. In this spot though, my hand is fairly irrelevant because I will frequently win the pot on the turn.
Another decent time to float is when someone raises,
Another decent time to float is when someone raises, you call in late position and you see an A-x-x board. If your opponent bets in this situation, you can call with a fairly wide range, especially if you have some outs like a gutshot, because most players will check-fold the turn if they don’t have an ace, and will give you credit for one.