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
You should tend to check behind the flop
You should tend to check behind the flop on boards that have a hard time connecting with your perceived range of hands and probably connect well with your opponent’s calling range. Suppose you raise from middle position and your opponent thinks you only raise high cards and pairs from this position. The big blind calls and it comes 8-7-6. Unless you have a big pair, you are unhappy with this flop. Even then, you can’t stand a lot of pressure. If your opponent checks to you, you should strongly consider checking back. You still need to bet with your weak hands sometimes, as you should show up with 10-9 sometimes and want to be paid off when you do. That being said, expect to be raised or at least called quite often by good, aggressive players, simply because this flop is very bad for your range. I suggest you check this flop much more than you bet it.
When you consider making a continuation bet,
When you consider making a continuation bet, realize you should have some balance in your game. While you should bet dry boards, like Q-7-4 and K-9-4, almost every time, as your opponent will give up often in those spots, you should bet wet boards, such as 8-7-6 and J-9-7, around half the time, adjusting this frequency depending on your opponent. Since you will hit the flop around 33 percent of the time, you will only be bluffing 17 percent of the time. If you are going to check behind when you miss, you will have to check from time to time when you make a strong hand on the flop. You must let your opponents know you don’t have a weak hand every time you check. I balance this by checking behind with my weak made hands with the intention of calling down. Even then, you need to play a strong hand, like the nuts, from time to time in this manner.