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
Fold hands like K-J and Q-10 to an early-position raise.
Fold hands like K-J and Q-10 to an early-position raise. Those hands perform very poorly against a standard early-position raising range. These are called “trouble hands” for a reason. Playing them only in position and as the aggressor will keep you out of trouble. You can call with a slightly wider range when someone raises from middle or late position. Hands like 9-6s and J-10o become playable. Your pair outs are usually a bit more live and your opponent’s range will be weaker, giving you more bluff equity. Say a loose opponent raises from middle position and you call on the button with J-10o. If it comes J-7-2, you can be pretty happy calling down, as you usually have the best hand. If it comes 8-7-3, you can call, hoping to catch a pair, a gutshot or a chance to bluff later. You can also raise immediately, hoping to pick up the pot right there, with outs if you’re called. Hands like K-J and Q-10 are sometimes playable against a middle- or late-position raiser. Many people open up their ranges significantly in late position, giving you a decent chance to dominate your opponent. Again, be careful when you make just top pair with a bad kicker, because when a lot of money goes into the pot, you are usually beat.
As long as you do not call with hands like A-8, K-10 and Q-9
As long as you do not call with hands like A-8, K-10 and Q-9 when you are out of position, you will tend to be in good shape. Playing hands like these will result in you flopping top pair, only to be beaten by top pair with a bigger kicker. These hands are not unplayable. You should actually be re-raising hands like A-9, K-J, A-K, Q-Q and A-A. If you only re-raise with premium hands, your opponents will quickly realize that you always have a strong hand when you re-raise. To balance this, you should re-raise with some weaker hands as well. I also suggest you re-raise with weaker suited connectors such as 9-6 or J-8 because most opponents will rarely put these hands in your re-raising range, allowing you to win a lot of chips when they flop well.