Playing medium-strong hands

One of the things I first noticed when moving from 3$ to 5$ sit and go's is a change in the way you can play medium-strong hands, such as:

K 10 off
K J off
QJ off
A 10 off

The average players range when you move from 3 to 5 dollar sit and goes decreases, so these hands are no longer likely ahead when you get a caller to your raise, especially if they are not in the blinds.

And, if an early position player raises, then these hands are no longer likely ahead of their holdings.

Less experienced players in the 3$ sit and goes have a wide range, especially limping range, so these hands do get called on raises or limping raises. This is less likely in 5$ tournaments.

How does this effect play? Although we should always be dependent on other player patterns and reads for a primary information, generally, this is how the game play changes:

1. Getting these cards in early position should lead to folds more often than raises.
2. Calling with these hands on an early position raiser is higher risk, potential kicker trouble.
3. You won't typically make as much money from these hands, as people with worse hands will quickly fold, people with better hands will call you and either raise you out of the hand or beat you at showdown.

In 3$ sit and goes, carefully played medium-strong hands can be decent money makers as the players limping and raise calling range is lower. In 5$ sit and goes, you can still profit from them, but have to pay more attention to position and be more respectful of early position raisers.

In other words, play these hands less in 5$ sit and goes than you would 3$.

The first 10 hands

When you first start any tournament, especially online, you will have almost no knowledge about the other players playing style. The safest way to play the first few hands of a tournament is to tighten up until you are otherwise confident, and then start playing ranges.

At the beginning of a tournament, depending somewhat on buy in, all of the maniacs, calling stations, and big bluffers are still in, so there are much higher odds of running into these playing styles.

If you do raise on an early hand in a touranment, and you have multiple callers, the odds of at least one of the callers making a very loose bad call is quite high. Its tough to impossible though to know if a three-bet to your raise off of a pair of 10's pre-flop is due to a very strong hand or a poor player.

There is one thing working in your favour though. And that is, rediculous players make rediculous mistakes that are easy to spot after just one hand. So a player who makes three calls on ace high is exposed rapidly, or the big bluffer who gets called with two pair or higher showing his king high. As soon as you see an example of this type of play, you can attempt to isolate the player (which is made easier as they may be the only one who will call your big raise pre flip when you have a strong hand) and play the hand out. For a calling station, second pair or better, or a strong draw are all reasons to keep betting. The key with calling stations or rediculous bluffers is that you must have at least something to defend with, going to the river with ace high is too risky, you want third pair at the lowest to defend (adjust to their play).

So, the safe way to play the first 10 hands of a tournament is to play tight, and play the cards when you do get strong holdings.

If however an early tournament player reveals real weakness, the poor players do fairly rapidly, you can exploit that weekness by attempting to isolate that player and lowering your range against them.