A common mistake I have seen a lot of in low- and mid-stakes MTTs during my time playing them is shoving hands that rate to be best in situations where there are more profitable lines available. Knowing when to do one play rather than another requires some read on your opponents' calling ranges and the likelihood that they will re-raise or re-jam with worse hands. Your stack size also dictates ...

Tournament poker is a high-variance game. Getting into situations where you have to put all of your chips into the pot is inevitable if you want to win. Oftentimes, the results don't pan out the way we feel they should when we lose coin flip after coin flip or we get it all-in pre-flop with A-K, get called by a worse hand, and lose. In short, some days we just can't win.

If you haven't already checked out the first part of this poker strategy series, read Set Mining in No Limit Hold'em Tournaments. In this article, we're going to take a look at small pairs with deep starting stacks when the pot has been opened already.