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
These advertising plays can help you in future tournaments.
These advertising plays can help you in future tournaments. Some of the most aggressive players realize that making a fairly –EV play today can pay off huge years down the road. A great example is Faraz Jaka. He plays like an absolute maniac most of the time. I have seen him five-bet all-in with total air, most recently with J-3o, three times. While this play is almost certainly –EV in a tournament, when he decides to finally play a bit tighter, he will rake in the money until players readjust, which is when he will probably revert to being a maniac. I avoid these long leveling wars because I have a hard time remembering what I do in any individual tournament against a specific person. If my memory were better, I would consider it. Remember that if you will never face a player again, there is very little value in making a play purely to advertise. Suppose you normally play local $100 tournaments but win a seat in a $10,000 tournament. Making crazy plays mostly for advertising value would be a huge waste because you will most likely go back to playing the $100 tournaments. Just play solid poker in the $10,000 event.
Fancy Play Syndrome
Fancy Play Syndrome Fancy play syndrome can come into play when you think your opponents are so much worse than you that you can get away with basically anything. While I do bluff from time to time, I rarely try ridiculous plays because most opponents won’t figure out what I want them to figure out. I don’t try to put fancy plays on tough opponents because I doubt that they are so much worse than me that I can trick them often enough to make my bluff work. In fact, you will win most of your money from poker not because you are great, but because your opponents are bad.