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
Levels of Thinking
Levels of Thinking You must constantly try to determine the level at which each of your opponents is thinking. I still have problems with this. It takes a lot of experience, concentration on each hand, and deep thought. If you are a world-class player, capable of thinking at only a world-class level, you will win money from basically all types of opponents. However, if you can think like a bad player as well as a world-class player, you will make even more money from the poor players.
I recently played in a small, local $10 buy-in tournament where everyone
I recently played in a small, local $10 buy-in tournament where everyone loved to play ever hand, basically always by limping pre-flop. The structure was very fast and I ended up having ten big blinds in the small blind with K-J. There were a few limps in front of me so I went all in, expecting to have a great deal of fold equity, as I would in a large-buy-in tournament. Also, I assumed if I were called, I may even be ahead of some of these guys’ ranges. What actually happened was that one of the limpers said something like, “I guess I have to call with this one,” and ended up busting me with A-K. Had I have known that these players limp with A-K after people have already limped, I would have just called with K-J and seen a flop. Not understanding how these people play cost me my stack.