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
Think about how often the players to your right are raising,
Think about how often the players to your right are raising, which will tell you how many times per orbit you can raise the pot. If they raise constantly and you never get to raise, you should probably be a little tight and wait for spots to push over them. If they fold often, you should probably fold, as you will be able to steal a decent number of blinds before the flop in the future. Try to make your decisions easier than those that your opponents put themselves to. You’ll be way ahead in the long run if you make the correct decision 80 percent of the time and your opponents do so 50 percent of the time.
Know what you are Inducing
Know what you are Inducing One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is to almost force their opponents to bluff, usually by acting weak, only to fold a hand that is most likely best. You must be keenly aware of what plays you are i nducing your opponent to make. For example, if you bet the flop out of position with Q-J on J-9-2, and then check on a 5 turn, your opponent will usually bet a fairly wide range, assuming he is aggressive and capable of calling the flop with nothing with the intention of taking you off your hand later. When you check the turn, you should almost always call reasonably sized bets on the turn and river, assuming your opponent is either value-betting a worse hand or bluffing with a draw or air.