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
Do Not Fear Going Broke
Do Not Fear Going Broke Once you get down to 60BBs, you can’t really fear going broke with strong hands like A-K or 10-10 before the flop or A-Q on a Q-7-3 board post-flop. While still pot-controlling with weak top-pair hands, be happy to get all the money in with anything better. If you raise before the flop with hands like A-Q+ or 10-10+ and are re-raised, go all-in unless your opponent is extraordinarily passive. For example, you raise with A-Q to 2.5BBs out of your 50BB stack and an aggressive player re-raises on the button to 7BBs. Push basically every time here, unless you raised from early position, in which case you should probably fold A-Q but still push with A-K+ and 10-10+. Your early-position range should be tight, so most players who are willing to re-raise here are probably willing to get all-in. Generally though, never fold a monster hand before the flop once you start to get short.
Be willing to push with an even wider range
Be willing to push with an even wider range against the most aggressive players. Suppose your opponent is fairly loose and aggressive and knows that you are as well. You raise to 2.5BBs out of your 40BB stack from middle position into a tight player’s blinds and your opponent in the cutoff re-raises to 7BBs. You can go all-in with a wide range because most of your equity is going to come from your opponent’s folds. You must know your opponent is fairly wild; otherwise an easy push can turn into an easy fold.