1. Be conservative in early tournament play. In the latter stages of a tourney, be very aggressive.
2. Control the game as much as possible by being the lead bettor. If you raise pre-flop, you should usually make a continuation bet the flop even if you got no help.
3. Large chip stacks need to play more aggressively than normal, attacking the small stacks whenever possible. Small stacks need to be more conservative than normal overall, but aggressive when they do play-avoiding big-stack confrontations when possible.
4. Make a bet on the river only if A) you think you have the best hand and expect a profit (on the river) when called or raised, and B) you think it will be less profitable than checking and inducing a bluff from your opponent, and finally C) there is little chance your opponent can bluff you out or win extra money with a re-raise.
5 Raising just the size of the big blind is very profitable in the following situations:
• You have a tight image and above-average chips. You're betting up front with a marginal hand (which you would usually fold, such as a baby pair or medium suited connectors) that you want to see the flop with and may turn into a big hand. If you miss your hand, you discard it at the first bet.
• You have a big hand upfront and it's early in a tournament, or you have a fairly loose image. You are hoping for someone to re-raise and then you can re-pop it, or just call if you think you will have no more than one additional player who will overcall. This is an excellent chance to trap one or two players for all their chips.
• You are in late position and have a strong calling hand and don't want to let the blinds see the flop cheaply.
• A player as in the first example above may be slow-playing a very big hand and you want to find out where you stand. If he makes a big re-raise, you can fold your hand and avoid getting trapped.
6. Johnny Chan was asked how he easily won a WSOP preliminary NL tourney. His insightful answer was that he had won a big hand early with the nuts, and then avoided multi-way pots and calling raises; he stuck to playing selected hands strongly and usually picking up pots on the flop or before (commonly known as "small ball" poker). He said his whole stack was never in jeopardy the entire tourney.
7. Replay each hand to see if your opponents' play makes sense. If not, strongly consider calling or raising.
8. Going all in is an equalizer for someone playing against significantly superior opponents.
9. Table position is very important in hold'em. You want to have aggressive, loose players on your right and passive, tight players on your left. Keep a watch for opportunities to move to betterpositioned seats when players leave the game.
10. Position relative to the button is also very important. The closer you are to the button, the more aggressively you can play. You can also play more suited connectors nearer to the button. You may play more marginal hands, in general, when you are near or on the button, in an unraised pot.
11. You need a much stronger hand to call a raise than to raise yourself. At times you will even fold a hand with which you were planning to raise.
12. In no-limit you often are justified in calling if the implied odds are high enough. If you hit the flop against an aggressive player, you can bust him.
13. Hold'em is generally a game of hitting flops. If you miss the flop, generally, you are better off to fold to any bet and be patient.
