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
Stop-and-Go
Stop-and-Go The stop-and-go is a play in which you call a raise from the big blind, and then push on any flop. In my opinion, the stop-and-go is another case of fancy play syndrome. I honestly can’t remember the last time I used this play because it is easy to play against and very few people fall for it. Here is how most people use the stop-and-go. A loose player raises to 2.5BBs from middle position and you are in the big blind with 9-8, A-7 or 2-2 with 10BBs. You decide to call. You will go all-in on any flop you miss and check on any flop you hit. Obviously you should mix it up from time to time, but rarely give up on the hand. So, if the board comes 8-7-3, the 2-2 would push and the 9-8 and A-7 would check, and if the flop came K-10-2, the 9-8 and A-7 would push and the 2-2 would check. The problem is that most players, unless they are weak and loose, which doesn’t happen too often in today’s games, will just call when you push the flop.
This may sound a bit crazy,
This may sound a bit crazy, but with a 10BB stack I would prefer to just push with all those hands. Even though the 9-8 doesn’t do too well against your opponent’s range, you usually have a decent amount of equity. Also, pushing these weaker hands helps balance your range when you do shove with strong hands, and if the player is loose, any of these hands could actually be ahead.