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
Suppose you are in the cutoff with A-10
Suppose you are in the cutoff with A-10 and a short stack pushes for 3BBs. You and everyone behind you have over 50BBs. This is a great spot to re-raise to around 6BBs. You can easily get away from your hand if anyone else calls or re-raises. In fact, you should re-raise to around 6BBs with every hand you are going to play in this spot. You will be very exploitable if you only do it with your weaker hands, so re-raise with A-A, 5-5, K-Q, A-10, etc.
In the big blind you just have to figure out your odds
In the big blind you just have to figure out your odds and decide if you should call. Suppose the button goes all-in for 3BBs and it is folded to you in the big blind. Which hands can you fold? Assuming there are 2BBs dead from the small blind and antes, plus 2 from the push and your 1 big blind, you have to call 2BBs to win 6BBs, meaning you need to win 25 percent of the time. Call with any two cards even if your opponent is pushing tight. Even 3-2 wins 28 percent of the time against 15 percent of hands, which is much tighter than any short stack will shove. Consider calling with 3-2 even if he pushes for 5BBs, meaning you need to call 4BBs to win 8BBs. Most good players will be pushing well over 50 percent of their hands, and 3-2 wins 32 percent of the time against that range, making it only a tiny error to call. So, for 5BBs, I would probably fold 3-2 to 9-2, 7-3 and 8-3, but call with everything else as long as losing would not cost much of my stack.