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
The corollary to the above is that chips increase in value
The corollary to the above is that chips increase in value as you have less of them. This means that there is a huge amount of equity in just surviving. In general, you should avoid getting all the money in as a 50-percent favorite when you have 50-percent equity in a pot. These are referred to as coin-flip situations. Most players take this concept much too far, as you are usually getting 1.5-to-1 odds in a spot where you will usually have 50-percent equity in a hand. Clearly, if you only need to win 40 percent of the time but you know you are going to win 50 percent of the time, except in the rarest situations, you should be happy to gamble.
In cash games, if you think you are 51-percent to win a hand
In cash games, if you think you are 51-percent to win a hand and are getting even money, you should get all-in every time, assuming you have the proper bankroll, because you will have an edge. But you must avoid these situations in tournaments because if you go broke, you are out of the tournament. You can often turn this around and force thinking opponents to fold big hands because they can’t risk being in a coin-flip situation.