By
Squirrely1 |
Published
Apr 26 2007, 10:51 PM
In my opinion, the most difficult hands to play in all stages of a tournament are tens, Jacks, and AK. Poker is a very situational game, and similarly to all other hands, the correct strategy for playing one of these hands will differ depending upon your stack in relation to the blinds, the stack of the player whom you are up against, and your position at the table. In this article, I will try to describe my ideal strategy for each of these situations. There may be other correct ways to play these hands, but in my opinion, what will be described is the most profitable in the long run.
Early Stages of a Tournament
Early on in tournaments, I prefer not to play any of these hands out of position. However, you also don’t want the pot to get so big that you’re forced to make huge decisions in the first few levels. If you are the first one into the pot, you should obviously open for a raise, hoping to buy the button and get action from the blinds.
From the blinds, you must consider your opponents and their skill level before deciding whether to re-raise or simply call, hoping to hit the flop. You don’t want to try and push bad players off of their hands; call and play post-flop poker with them. Against good players, I almost always re-raise when out of position with these hands. If the re-raise is called, then you often know that you’re up against a big hand. If you have no idea as to the skill level of the other player, simply call.
With TT and JJ, there will often times be overcards on the flop, and you will need to play with caution. Likewise, with AK, you’re going to miss the flop more often than not. Let’s examine this situation:
You are in the first level of the nightly $150 on Stars and are dealt JJ in the small blind. You haven’t played many hands, and your stack is still hovering around 2000. The action folds around to the cutoff, who makes it 80 to go. The button calls, and you re-raise to 300. The cutoff calls and the button folds. At this point, there is 700 in the pot and you have 1700 left.
The flop comes out Q74 with two clubs. You now must continuation bet anywhere from 50-75% of the pot. You bet 450, and the cutoff calls. The turn brings the 9 of hearts. What do you do here? You have 1250 remaining if your stack, and there is 1600 in the pot already. Your only two moves are either check or go all in. You have a huge decision to make, and you really don’t know where you are in the hand--the villain could have 77-AA, AQ, Ax of clubs, or 44. You have virtually no information about your opponent's holding and now must make a decision for all of your chips.
The moral of the story is that you should almost always flat call out of position and try to keep the pot small. There’s no reason to commit a large percentage of your stack pre-flop unless you have QQ-AA (at least this early in a tournament).
The Middle Stages
There is no doubt in my mind that these three hands will get you knocked out of more tournaments in the middle stages than any other hands. Sometimes, the situation is simply unavoidable, and you run AK into KK. During the middle stages, your stack will be the most important determinate as to how you play the hand. For those of you who aren’t familiar with M, here’s a quick explanation. Take all of the money in the pot and divide that into your stack. If the blinds are 100/200 with a 10 ante, there is 390 in the pot pre-flop at a 9-handed table. Suppose you have 3500 chips; your M is a little less than 9 (3500/390 = 8.97).
If your M is below 10, and you are facing a raise of 3-4X the blinds, I prefer to move all-in with any of these three hands. If you happen to run into a monster, just chalk it up to bad luck and move on. You have enough chips to protect the hand, and your opponent must have something big to call. You would generally prefer no action with any of these three, so the re-raise is preferred.
With an M between 10 and 20 while in position, I like to flat call with the TT and JJ but re-raise with AK. If your opponent commits a large portion of their stack with an opening raise, trust your read and either fold or put them all-in; calling is not a very good choice when a player with 2200 chips opens the pot for 600.
When you are in position with these three hands and your M is 10-20, the main determinate of your action will be what position the opening raise came from. If everyone folds the action to the button, you should always re-raise. However, if the opening raise is from early to middle position, you must consider the aggressiveness of that player and his/her table image. Re-raise those who are loose and call and play flops with those who are tight.
When your M is above 30 in the middle stages of a tournament, you should use your chips like a sledge hammer when you have these hands. The ideal play when you have your opponents outchipped is to always re-raise and put them to the test. It doesn’t matter whether you are in position or not; when you have a large stack, always re-raise with these holdings. However, you should generally fold when the pot is raised and re-raised before the action ever gets to you.
The Late Stages
Generally, in the late stages of tournaments, everyone’s M will be relatively low, and people will tighten up. However, they will try and play much bigger pots when they have a decent hand. In my opinion, these three hands play themselves during the late stages. You will often times open the pot with one of the three and get re-popped and priced into calling. Likewise, you will also see shorter stacks pushing in from late position, and if you have any of these three hands, you will almost always have to call. Strategically, there isn’t too much to playing these hands late in tournaments; just hope you happen to have the best hand when you pick them up.
If you are dealt one of these hands in the latter stages of a deeper-stacked tournament, I would recommend playing them similarly to the middle-stage strategy.
By no means is this a comprehensive guide for how to play these hands every time you get them. However, this should help to alleviate some of the confusion that many players face during different periods of a tournament. Mess around with different ways to play these hands, and hopefully you can modify this guide somewhat in order to better fit your personal style. Good luck, and I’ll see you at the final table.