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
If you are in middle or late position
If you are in middle or late position and the table is playing fairly tight, be willing to open with a wide range of hands, hoping to steal the blinds. If you steal two sets of blinds every orbit and get away with re-raising a player once in a while, you will find your stack growing quickly. If the players behind you are all aggressive, then wait for hands that you are willing to re-raise all-in. So, if you are at a tight table, you could certainly raise 9-8 from middle position to 2.25BBs, but this would be a clear fold at an aggressive table. If you raised A-Q to 2.25BBs at an aggressive table and someone re-raised, you would be more than happy to go all-in if the re-raiser was aggressive.
You must be able to read your table well.
You must be able to read your table well. Play tight if you are going to be re-raised, and raise like crazy if everyone will fold every time you put a chip in the pot. As everyone’s stack gets shorter, the players at the top of the leader board are the ones that adjust properly to their table and refuse to lose chips to bad decisions.