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
Not Putting Your Opponent All-in
Not Putting Your Opponent All-in You may have heard that you should be sure to put your opponent all-in any time the stack sizes allow it. While leaving an opponent with a few big blinds could come back to haunt you, making a bet that is much more likely to be called when you are confident you have the best hand is usually worth it. Against weaker players on the river, if your bet would normally be all-in, consider betting a slightly smaller amount, leaving your opponent with a stack he thinks is worth something. As we already know, when you would normally put in about 1/3 of your stack, you should go all-in. Despite this, some players will be much more likely to call your river bet if you leave them with a few big blinds. Those few big blinds you leave a weak player usually won’t be worth much because most of them play the short stack poorly.
Say you and your opponent, a fairly weak player
Say you and your opponent, a fairly weak player who doesn’t want to go broke, both have 50BBs. You raise to 2.5BBs with A-K and he calls in the big blind. The flop comes K-9-3. Your opponent checks, you bet 4BBs and he calls. The turn is the 5. Your opponent checks, you bet 10BBs and he calls. The river is the 2 and he checks. You are fairly sure he has a hand somewhere between K-Q and 9-8, giving him something between top and middle pair. The pot has 33BBs in it and you have 34BBs left in your stack. You should push against a good player, but since your opponent does not want to go broke, bet about 27BBs. He will likely make a crying call, whereas he might fold to a push because he doesn’t want to bust out of the tournament.