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
Say everyone has 200BBs, someone raises to 3BBs
Say everyone has 200BBs, someone raises to 3BBs from middle position and you call with 2-2 on the button. The flop comes K-J-2. Your opponent makes a standard bet of around 4BBs, which is 2/3 pot. If you raise, you should make it about 12BBs here, which is three times your opponent’s bet. If there is a bet and a call, you should raise to 3 times the bet plus the amount of the calls, so if a player bets 200 and someone calls, you should raise to around 800. As stacks get shorter, your raises can be a little smaller, although they should rarely be near the minimum, as you will be giving your opponent odds too good to fold.
As you can see, I use a few fairly simply formulas
As you can see, I use a few fairly simply formulas to determine how much to bet in any given situation. While you can vary your bet sizes from time to time against the weakest players, most competent players will discern a pattern if the sizes of your bets vary by situation. Because of this, I suggest you bet the same amount every time in a particular situation.