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
Simply put, I don’t raise too often on the flop
Simply put, I don’t raise too often on the flop because very strong hands don’t come around too often, and also because I rarely bluff the flop by raising. By keeping the pot fairly small on the flop, you can generate better reads and extract more value later in the hand when your edge is greater.
Leading into the Pre-flop Raiser
Leading into the Pre-flop Raiser We learned in the bluffing section that leading into the pre-flop raiser is a great way to pick up pots from time to time. While I rarely donk-bet, some players have integrated the play into their game with decent success. The standard play when out of position and not the pre-flop raiser is to check to the raiser. This has become so common that any other play feels weird. Because of this, most players have very little experience dealing with habitual donk-bettors. Most good players that donk-bet over 30 percent of the time are making these plays with a wide range of hands, although they tend to lead with most of their stronger hands as well as semi-bluffs. They also realize that the best hands for donk-betting are those with which they would normally not call or check-raise.