If you’re planning on competing in a limit tournament, you need to keep the gap idea in mind. This is the most glaring alteration that must be made to your approach in order to compete in this tournament. Rather than focusing too much on the pot odds, you will be hyper-focused on winning each and every pot you enter. This doesn’t mean you’ll make blatantly terrible decisions or put yourself in dangerous situations, though. As you progress deeper into the tournament, the blinds increase in size, so it’s in your best interest to eliminate as many opponents as possible while stealing as many blinds as possible to boost your position in the tournament’s overall statistics.
What you should do is continue with the hands you believe have a good chance of winning the pot. During this process, values are traded. For instance, a straight or flush draw loses some of its value, and a high pocket pair is not as strong as it once was. However, because they are superior to all other similar hands like AT, KQ, etc., high card values such as AK and AQ are far more valuable. But as you get closer to the end, you should avoid getting into major disagreements, such as holding an A J while your opponent holds a K. If the flop reveals an A J, you have a good chance of winning the pot, but so does the A K; it all comes down to luck.
The goal of a tournament is not to win all of your opponents’ chips or even to have them pay off your big hands, but rather to intimidate them and force them to fold. They will fold to your dominant hand, allowing you to gradually build your stack size. And when you feel threatened by a stronger hand, you should do the same. If you raise with a hand like A 9, the opponent with a hand like A 10 will fold because he needs to consider the possibility that you hold a better hand like A J, as predicted by the gap concept.
You should always call any raises made in your presence if you were dealt a high pocket pair, like as KK or AA. In order to achieve your goal of eliminating opponents from the round, you must raise once more. Showing such aggression with strong hands sends a message to your opponents that you are willing to eliminate them from the game if they continue to play against you.
You should always be evaluating the competence of the people around you. Take a moment to consider the cards that your opponents may be holding when you play. While it’s true that having an appreciation for the gap idea will make you a better player, it’s also important to remember that there are awful players who will call your bets and raises if they think they have a decent hand, regardless of the cards their opponents are holding.