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
Against opponents that play well post-flop,
Against opponents that play well post-flop, you should just push every hand you plan to play, as calling usually will cost a significant portion of your stack and they will be the ones winning pots they don’t deserve instead of you. This means you should go all in with hands like 5-4s, 4-4, J-10o, K-Qs and A-A. The problem with just calling with hands like A-A is that a good player will know you wouldn’t call in a spot like that except with a very strong hand. By calling, you turn your hand face-up, which is never a good thing.
How do you defend yourself when you raise and get shoved on?
How do you defend yourself when you raise and get shoved on? If you are on the button, both your opponents have between 5 and 10 times what your raise would be and you have a fairly weak hand, feel free to fold. No rule states you must raise with a huge range from late position. If your opponents have either more or less than 5 to 10 times your raise, you can raise a wide range. If they go all-in for very few chips, you will be getting a great price to call, and if they go all-in or re-raise with a larger stack, you will have an easy fold. Avoid situations where you raise with something like K-4s, your opponent goes all-in and you are getting 1.8-to-1 to call. Any time you need to be only 30-percent to win, you generally have an easy call. Any time you need to be 45-percent to win, you generally have an easy fold with your weak hands. You will often need to be something like 38-percent to win and your hand will probably win about that often. So, simply don’t raise in this situation when you are likely to face a push.