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
Most players have a hard time calling a large bet
Most players have a hard time calling a large bet with a weak hand. Suppose you raise A-Q to 3BBs out of your 200BB stack and a player calls in the small blind. The flop comes Q-9-3. Your opponent checks, you bet 5BBs into the 7BB pot and he calls. At this point you can narrow his range to most pairs, J-10 and random gutshots l ike K-J. The turn is a king and you both check. Most players will go for a check-raise on the turn with a straight or two pair and check-call with a king. They will fold all worse hands except maybe Q-10 or Q-J, which you have crushed and can get value from on the river anyway. Checking the turn is clearly the play because betting transforms your strong made hand into a bluff, which is usually bad. The river is a 4. Your opponent checks. You can be fairly certain he doesn’t have a stronger hand than you because he probably would have bet the river. If he has a missed gutshot, like 10-8, he is going to fold to any bet, so you can ignore when he has air. When he has a small pair or a 9, he will probably call a modest bet of around 2/5 pot. He will probably call a 2/3-pot bet with Q-10 or Q-J. So, his calling range is something like Q-J, Q-10, J-9, 10-9, 9-8, 9-7, 9-6, J-J, 10-10, 8-8, 7-7, 6-6 and 5-5. Most of those hands are weaker than a queen, so I would tend to bet around 2/5 pot.
For another example, you raise Q-J to 3BBs
For another example, you raise Q-J to 3BBs out of your 300BB stack from middle position and the big blind calls. The flop is 10-8-4. Your opponent checks, you bet 5BBs. The turn is the 9. Your opponent checks and you bet 12BBs. He calls, the river brings the 7 and he checks. Your opponent will call basically any bet with a flush. He will call most large bets with a jack. He will probably call a small bet with a 6, a set or two pair, and will fold with a pair or less. In this case I would ignore all hands containing a 6, as those are unlikely given the way the hand played out. I would also discount all sets except nines and sevens. Most likely your opponent would have raised a flush on the turn, so you can discount that. That leaves hands with a jack and two pair. He will probably call a bet with A-J, K-J, Q-J, J-10, J-9, J-8, 8-6, 7-6, 9-9, 7-7, 10-9, 10-8, 10-7, 9-8 and 9-7. So, we have nine combinations of straights and seven combinations of weaker holdings. Some hands are more likely than others because your hand and the board account for a queen, jack, 10, 9, 8 and 7, but we will ignore this for simplicity and assume all hands are equally likely. I would make a larger bet here for two main reasons. First, the majority of his range consists of hands that will call a large bet, and second, you win more money when he calls larger bets. So, I would tend to make a pot-sized bet here, fully expecting him to call with all jacks and some sixes. You might even get lucky and see him check-raise a slow-played flush, winning you a ton of chips.