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
Half-Stack Raise
Half-Stack Raise If you feel like you are losing fold equity but still want to push a wide range, you can consider raising to about half your stack instead of pushing. While I do not use this play against thinking opponents, you can use it with great success against weak players. Suppose you are on the button with an 8BB stack and know you will push any two cards if your opponents fold to you. They do and you look down at 7-4. You have pushed the last three times in this situation and fear the blinds may be tiring of your constant aggression. This is a great spot, assuming the blinds are weak, to raise to 4BBs. If one of the blinds pushes, you have to call, as you will be getting 4-to-1, but he will usually think you are begging for action with a monster hand.
If the blinds just call,
If the blinds just call, which will rarely happen, you can fold if one of them pushes and the flop is terrible for you, like A-J-10, electing to save a 4BB stack. Bluff regardless of the flop if checked to. You will be amazed at how often a player will call the 4BB raise with something like K-10 and check-fold on an 8-5-2 board. Used sparingly, this little trick will get you one or two extra sets of blinds. Just don’t overuse it because it will quickly become useless once people catch on.