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
How to Play with a Maniac on Your Left
How to Play with a Maniac on Your Left One of the toughest situations in tournament poker is when you have a super-aggressive player on your left, because he constantly forces you to either put in a lot of chips or fold. When someone re-raises every time you raise and raises every time you limp, it greatly cuts down the number of hands you can play profitably. To combat this, you will generally need to play tighter but more aggressively, making sure you put a lot of money in the pot with your premium hands.
When you are deep-stacked and the maniac is on your left,
When you are deep-stacked and the maniac is on your left, simply play a tight-aggressive game, assuming the maniac is constantly entering pots with you. In general, if he doesn’t re-raise too often pre-flop, feel free to raise and continuation-bet your normal range. On the turn and river, tend to check and call down to induce bluffs. The worst thing to do is to make a decent hand like top pair, top picker, which will be well ahead of a maniac’s range, only to bet the flop and have him fold to your turn bet. Give him a lot of rope so he can hang himself.