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
Image: Your image is how everyone else at the table perceives you.
Image: Your image is how everyone else at the table perceives you. If you have folded every hand for an hour, you should expect most of your opponents to fold next time you raise, as long as you aren’t too deep-stacked, whereas if you have been raising every hand, expect them to play back at you. Throughout the tournament, your image will change constantly. If you fold every hand for 30 minutes and then raise, even if you were loose earlier, you will get respect. If, after folding every hand for 30 minutes, you raise the next five hands, you should expect opponents to play back at you. Knowing what everyone thinks of you will greatly increase your equity in any tournament.
Players often talk about how tight they have been playing
Players often talk about how tight they have been playing without noting how many hands they have actually played. Let’s say you have played 15 premium hands over the last 20 hands, with none of them going to showdown. While you know you have been playing a tight game, everyone else will likely think you are a maniac, as you have played 75 percent of your last 20 hands. Similarly, if you fold every hand due to a string of poor cards, you will appear to be playing tight and will get the pre-flop respect accorded most tight players. Not knowing your image, or assuming you have a different image than you actually do, can cost you lots of chips.