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
Playing from the Big Blind
Playing from the Big Blind Playing from the big blind is quite different from playing in the small blind. You get a larger discount and usually close the action before the flop, so you will never be re-raised off your hand. Because of this, you can play slightly more hands from the big blind than from the small blind.
You should still fold most hands if someone raises from early position.
You should still fold most hands if someone raises from early position. Call only with fairly strong hands, like A-Q+, 2-2+ and big suited connectors. Proceed with caution even with these hands. If the raiser is from middle or late position, you can call a bit wider, with 2-2+, A-J+, A-2s+, K-J+, Q-J and suited connectors. Be careful defending from the blinds. You can easily get carried away and start defending with hands like Q-5s, saying you are only going to continue if you flop well. If it comes Q-8-3 and a lot of chips go in, you can be fairly certain you are beat but will still have a hard time folding.