You can’t play with fear if you want a monster stack, says Jamie Sykes – live by the sword (and hopefully don’t die by the sword)
As I mentioned in in the last article, the early stages of a tournament are where people are fearless, and seem to all have a mantra written on their hand reading: ‘I WILL NOT BE BLUFFED!’. This allows you to really jack up your sizing down the streets when you have a strong value hand and your villain has shown signs of stubbornness. You’ll get big river bets called off that we won’t be able to once the fear kicks in towards the middle stages of the tournament.
Don’t be afraid to go for full pot or even over the pot on the turn and river on dry, uncoordinated board textures where you think that a person’s range contains mostly top pair type hands that they really don’t want to fold. You’d be surprised how many times a full pot bet will be called just as quickly as a half-pot bet on later streets.
Read the other articles in this series now:
- How to build a monster stack quickly in tournaments: #1 Assess your table
- How to build a monster stack quickly in tournaments: #2 Get stuck in!
- How to build a monster stack quickly in tournaments: #4 Don’t over-value hands preflop
- How to build a monster stack quickly in tournaments: #5 Get your three-bet on!
Jamie Sykes is a UK tournament pro – get more strategy from him and other big winners in PokerPlayer magazine every month – subscribe today for just £12.99 for 12 issues!
