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
It is important to realize how people will respond to playing
It is important to realize how people will respond to playing against their newfound friends. Some players ignore the fact that we are friendly and play like we don’t know each other, which they should. Some players, the ones I will exploit, start playing very s traightforwardly against their new friends. This will allow me to run them over. If your new friend is on your right, re-raise him often and claim to have a big hand when he asks what you are doing. If he’s on your left, you can expect him only to re-raise you with a premium hand. He will also rarely try to put a play on you post-flop. If one of your new friends does re-raise you, tend to give him credit if he’s been tight against you so far.
Very few people will put a play on you in the middle of a conversation.
Very few people will put a play on you in the middle of a conversation. If you and the player on your left are talking about his new house when you decide to raise, if he re-raises you, he will almost always have a premium hand. If you stop talking to each other for around 15 minutes, the play generally reverts back to normal. Because of this, you should generally talk about more detailed subjects toward the end of the day when the blinds will be highest. Another time to bring out the chattiness is when you are short-stacked. If you only have 10BBs left, you will usually be stealing. You can make a comment like, “I am only going to go all-in with a big pair or ace-king.” Obviously this isn’t true, but many people, especially your new friends, will believe it and give you credit for a big hand when you push.