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
Be careful not to shove every single time
Be careful not to shove every single time it is folded to you if your opponents are quick to figure you out. You can occasionally fold the button with a total trash hand when you have 11BBs. While you may pass up a slightly +EV spot, you will gain a lot of fold equity next time you push on those players. However, if I had to choose between always pushing the button or never pushing it with 9-4 and a 7BB stack, I would push it every time as long as I had fold equity.
When There Are Limpers
When There Are Limpers From time to time, even in large buy-in events, a player will limp when everyone has a short stack. When this happens, you need to quickly figure out if he is limping with a wide range, trying to see a cheap flop or holding a monster and hoping an overly aggressive player will shove. Give a player’s first limp a decent amount of respect, but after that, attack him whenever possible as long as he is not tricky enough to balance his limping range. Suppose someone limps from middle position, the small blind calls and you are in the big blind with any two cards and 10BBs. If you think the limper calls around 30 percent of the time with the top 15 percent of hands, and that the small blind will never call—and he usually won’t—should you push? We have 0.7(5) + 0.3[23(0.31) - 10] = 2.6BBs expected profit, which is huge. So, if players limp often, push very wide. Now, look at what happens when they never fold and they have the top 10 percent of hands. We have 0(5) + 1[23(.31) - 10] = -2.87BBs. So, if your opponent is always limp-calling with a strong hand, you should never push.