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
Speaking of tells, if you know your opponent hit the flop
Speaking of tells, if you know your opponent hit the flop and you totally missed, you should almost always check-fold. You have to have a strong read on a player, but when you do, you will save a ton of chips. Also, when you know he’s missed, you can bet and pick up the pot every time. Finally, when you have a monster and he has a strong hand, you can value bet him to death and win a huge pot. An opponent I played against in the WSOP would start breathing heavily whenever he connected with the flop. Against this player, I would wait about five seconds before I made my continuation bet to figure out if he had a hand. Sure enough, every time he was breathing heavily, I would check, he would bet and I would fold. He was even kind enough to show me a set twice. It’s always nice when opponents tell me I am playing great.
If you know you are playing an aggressive continuation bettor,
If you know you are playing an aggressive continuation bettor, you have to realize that his bet means very little about the strength of his hand. Some players assume a bet always means a player has top pair or better. This simply isn’t true. Against some players, I assume the hand doesn’t even start until they continuation-bet the flop. You have to relentlessly attack these players’ continuation bets. Ideally you will have developed a strong read on your opponent and can determine when he hits the flop and when he misses.