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
Now, assume you raise from the cutoff with A-A to 3BBs,
Now, assume you raise from the cutoff with A-A to 3BBs, as in the hand before, and the player on the button just calls. You bet 5BBs at the K-J-2 flop and he raises to 14BBs. In this spot he will fold everything that beats you if you raise and will call only when you are in bad shape, so you just call. The turn is a 3 and you both check. The river is a 6, you value bet around 25BBs and he will just call with top pair, winning you 40BBs. As you can see, you can get your opponent’s stack simply because you get to put in one extra bet on the river while in position, but you only win 2/5 of his stack from out of position.
In no-limit holdem the pot grows exponentially.
In no-limit holdem the pot grows exponentially. The more money you put in the pot early in the hand, the more money you can put in later. In general, when you are in position, you get to put in one more bet in safe spots, as in the examples above, than you could if you were out of position. When you are in position, you determine how much of your opponent’s stack you want to get in the pot, which is quite powerful, considering that stacking your opponents is the name of the game.