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 most suited connectors if the pot is heads-up.
Fold most suited connectors if the pot is heads-up. Being out of position, you will have a tough time getting a lot of money in the pot when you hit a good flop, and you will not hit the flop often enough to make up for this disadvantage. Suppose someone raises from middle position and you have 9-7s in the small blind. You should usually fold if the action is folded to you and call if someone calls before you. If everyone folds to you, consider re-raising. I generally hesitate to re-raise from the small blind when very deep-stacked because good opponents will pick you apart using position. But re-raising from the blinds can be a powerful tool against novices because most players give too much respect to re-raises and assume you must have a monster hand to re-raise from the small blind.
If you are against an aggressive late-position raiser
If you are against an aggressive late-position raiser who often folds to re-raises, feel free to re-raise with a wide range, such as A-2+, K-5+, Q-9+, J-9+, 10-8+, 2-2+ and suited connectors. Again, don’t do this too often because observant opponents will start to call your re-raises and use their position against you.