Friday, May 18, 2012

Premium hands early in tournaments, early pos.

Today I want to discuss premium hands under the gun or +1+2 spots, in the early on parts of tournaments. The action starts with you and you look down at a hand as powerful as KK. What to do? In the early parts of a tournament, I think you should open your mind to playing this hand very stealth like. Limp this hand! There is usually plenty of action in the early stages of tournaments. If you limp here, and get a couple more limpers, than someone decides to make a standard 3x raise..You now have a pot built for you! Now this is where you need to make the right play and evaluate what kind of table you are at. If its at a very lose table, make the 3 bet big enough where you will get one or 2 callers pre-flop. If it's a very tight table you can make a smaller 3 bet and hope for the same outcome. Hands like KK AA QQ, you are not going to want multiple callers early on in tournaments. Why? Well, simply they are not easy hands to get away from! You hold AA on a board of, 27J rainbow. Looks like a safe board to bet, but if you miss played this pre-flop and let that guy in with the 77 or 22, your not going to like the outcome!