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
Players who will go out of their way to try to outplay you
Players who will go out of their way to try to outplay you generally don’t say anything or act upset, as they know that would blow their plan. But, if you are paying attention, you will see them look at you in an odd way, as if they are out to get you. Once you see this for the first time, you will know what I am talking about. It’s almost as if they want to make you pay for running over everyone. When you see this, realize that you are going to play a decently big pot with this person in the near future.
I like to raise, let the player re-raise, and then go all-in,
I like to raise, let the player re-raise, and then go all-in, assuming that makes sense given the stack sizes. He will usually fold. If the stacks are deep, I try to call his raises with hands that flop decent top pairs, and then go into call-down mode, try to act as weak as possible and hope he bluffs off a lot of chips. If I raise before the flop and he calls, I will usually continuation-bet my entire range on the flop, and then go into check-call mode with all pairs or better, again allowing him to bluff. The key is to not be too concerned with getting all-in. He will usually have a weak hand that can’t stand any pressure. Because of this, you generally need to check-call down against these players when you have a decent made hand.