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
Actively looking for all-in squeeze opportunities
Actively looking for all-in squeeze opportunities will dramatically increase your win rate. If your opponents view you as a tighter player, it will be even more profitable because they will fold far too often. If you’re bluffing, don’t show your hand unless you’re called. Play all your strong hands the same way to give your squeezes more credit. Nothing is worse than squeezing a few times and then picking up A-A and instead of squeezing, re-raising to something like 10BBs. While you may think you are suckering your opponents in, you should do the same thing every time. In this case, just go all-in.
Early-Position Steal
Early-Position Steal Everyone knows that it is important to steal the blinds late in a tournament. Most everyone knows that people raise from late position with a large range of hands in order to steal the blinds. Most everyone also knows that people usually only raise from early position with strong hands. Because of this, there are many great spots to raise from early position as a total bluff, with basically no intention of putting in any more money besides a continuation bet if called. If you raise often from early position, players will no longer give you credit for a good hand, so use this play sparingly. Don’t put in too much money post-flop when you’re called, as people will generally assume you have a strong hand, like 9-9+ or A-Q+. When you get action, it is usually from someone that can beat most of those hands.