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
Another situation where you will constantly have to guess
Another situation where you will constantly have to guess about your equity is when you think your opponent either has a good made hand or a draw. Suppose after a few limpers, you limp with A-10 on the button, which is a questionable play, and the flop comes A-9-8. Everyone checks to you, you bet and only the big blind calls. The turn is the 3. Your opponent checks and you bet again. At this point your opponent raises all-in.
In this spot, assuming you know your opponent
In this spot, assuming you know your opponent will never go all-in here with less than A-Q but will go all-in with numerous draws, you can give your opponent a range of 9-9, 8-8, 3-3, A-9, A-8, A-3, 9-8, 9-3, 8-3, any suited hand with spades, and maybe hands like J-10 and 10-7. You can exclude A-A, A-K and A-Q, because most players would raise these hands after a few limpers. This range isn’t exact, but should be enough to give you a general guideline regarding what he would push with. Now the question is simple. What odds do you need to call? It turns out that you have around 50-percent equity against this range, so you have a clear call if you’re getting anything more than even money, and you are. If you know your opponent will never push a draw but will instead only push the range of made hands that are two pair or better, you now need to be getting better than 3-to-1, as you only have 25-percent equity. If you are unsure if your opponent will push some or no draws, you should make your best guess about your equity and determine whether you are getting the right price to call.