After learning what bankroll management is, which phases a tournament goes through and with which hands you can enter the pot, there is only one more point to consider: how to play on the flop, the turn and the river.

In principle, you differentiate between the hands with which you raised before the flop, and those with which you didn't. In the first case, you are the aggressor - one could also say that you have the initiative. This means you have a clear advantage as you will often put your opponent to a decision and don't necessarily need a strong hand every time.

How to play after you raised before the flop

If you are the so-called aggressor in the betting round, you have the advantage of being able to represent a strong hand.

In general, you want to have a good made hand, like top pair or better, after the flop. A top pair is a pair with one of your two hole cards and the highest community card.

An overpair is even better - it's a made pair on your hand that's higher than any community card.

Two pair, three of a kind, straights, flushes and better are also hands you want to play strong with.

These are the kind of hands you want to exert pressure with and, possibly, get all-in with. Of course, you shouldn't do this in all cases. If the community cards develop unfavorably and your opponent credibly represents a hand that beats yours, still wanting to go all-in no matter what would equate to burning your money.

You will see what nuances you can incorporate into your playing style in the advanced strategy articles. As a rule of thumb, you should remember that top pair is a strong made hand if you have raised before the flop.

It's a different case for so-called draws, which are unmade hands that need another good card on the turn or the river to turn into a strong hand like a flush or a straight.

You shouldn't play these kinds of hands in the early or middle phases. This might appear counter-intuitive at first, but starts to make sense when you remind yourself that a lost chip in a tournament is worth more than a chip you win.

A lot of beginners have a hard time letting go of a flush draw, which has a pretty good chance of becoming a flush. Don't fall for that trap. Especially in the early phase of a tournament, investing a lot of chips into one of these hands can be a deadly mistake, even if it would make perfect sense when playing a cash game.

Investing chips with a hand that is not yet a good pair or better is a bad idea that only rarely pays off. There are exceptions to this rule, however, which you'll learn in the bronze section after passing the quiz.

If you raised before the flop, one could say you're entitled to a bluff, the so-called continuation bet. Whenever you didn't hit a top pair or better on the flop, but are up against a single opponent, you should still bet.

At the same time, if you're up against a single opponent who checks, you can also bluff. If it doesn't work out and he doesn't fold his hand, you just give up your bluff.

In cases where you have more than one opponent, it doesn't pay to make a continuation bet anymore, though. The probability of a bluff succeeding and of all your opponents to give up decreases dramatically.

QUIZ

As mentioned previously, top pair is a strong hand if you raised before the flop, especially if you have the best possible kicker with the ace. You should bet about 2/3 pot-size on the flop.

This example becomes interesting on the turn. The opponent suddenly bets into you. This way of playing is usually only seen from bad players. It's supposed to be some kind of bluff or a bet that's meant to keep you at some distance. Whenever the opponent chooses this way of playing, you can be quite sure he only rarely has the best hand. That's why you should raise here.

After your opponent called your raise on the turn and puts all his chips on the line on the river, you don't have any other choice than calling the all-in. You might sometimes see very badly played hands like K2, but you will be ahead most of the time.

This situation is different from the previous one. The raise before the flop is standard - after all, two queens are the third best starting hand in Texas Hold'em.

The flop unfortunately brings a king, though, turning your hand into something worse than a top pair. As you only have a single opponent and could possibly still be ahead, you bet the normal 2/3 pot-size.

On the turn, your opponent suddenly bets into you again. This time, the decision is close. You could fold here without trouble. But as the bet is quite smallish, about half pot-size, you can still call in this particular case. It shouldn't turn into a habit, though! The point here is that this way of playing a hand usually indicates a weaker hand from your opponent, and the bet isn't particularly big.

Your plan is: call the bet on the turn, and possibly another small bet on the river. If the opponent bets a big amount on the river, as happens in our example, you should give up.

You raise with ace king again and this time, two players call. On the flop, both of them check to you, but as you didn't hit anything, you check, too.

On the turn, you finally hit your top pair, but there are a lot of possible draws out there - unmade hands with the possibility of becoming the strongest hand, like heart or diamond flush draws, for instance. After both opponents check again, you should bet here. You can even bet slightly bigger than 2/3 pot-size in order to protect your hand against draws.

After both opponents called the bet on the turn and the river brings the third diamond to complete a possible flush draw, another bet doesn't make much sense. There are only a few worse hands that would pay you off. You run the risk of paying off a flush or another better hand, however. The best action here is to simply check and take a free showdown, which you will often win. Betting here would be pointless, as only the hands you can actually beat would fold.

How to play if you didn't raise before the flop

If you didn't raise before the flop, the relative strength of your hands somewhat shifts. You should now have at least two pair in order to play strongly after the flop. You should give up on hands worse than that, especially against several opponents.

This might seem counter-intuitive again, especially when you happen to throw away a small overpair, but as we have already repeated so often, tournaments are played differently to "normal" poker.

As we have seen for the case where you're aggressor, you shouldn't play draws - hands that can improve into a flush or a straight.

What might be correct in a cash game can easily be wrong or even a disastrous mistake in a tournament. This is true in particular for draws. The chips you can possibly win are worth a lot less than the chips you risk.

If you weren't the aggressor, you shouldn't be bluffing either. You can sometimes consider it when you're up against a single opponent that has to play before you, he checks and if the community cards don't seem to have helped any hands.

In general, bluffs bring you into such marginal situations, however, that you would do better avoiding them completely. Players have a hard time letting go of all kinds of random hands, especially on the lower limits. A good strategy to counter this would logically be to wait until you hit a good hand, then play it strong.

QUIZ

You have a so-called flush draw on the flop, meaning you have the chance to get a flush, if the turn or the river brings one more spade. Betting yourself would be pointless, as it would only be a bluff, and the chances are slim that all three opponents will give up their hand. You therefore check.

After the player in the CO bets pot-size, the hand is over for you. Even though your hand might look very promising, it doesn't pay to call such a high bet. If he was to bet only 20 chips, you could think about calling.

In this example, you have a similar situation, except that you hit the flush right away on the flop. You should make a play at the pot here immediately by betting about 2/3 pot-size.

A lot of beginners tend to slow-play here, meaning they will check in the hopes that another player will bet. This is a capital mistake. Just remember one simple rule: on the lower limits, your opponents are a lot more likely to call a bet than to bet themselves.

If you have a strong hand, play it strongly. Don't try to trick your opponents, as you will usually end up tricking yourself. There won't be anymore chips in the pot unless you bet. Additionally, there are quite a few hands that would kill any kind of action on the turn, for example another spade. No one will want to invest much more into the pot then, as you already have the ace to the flush.

In accordance with the starting hands chart, you entered play with a pair of nines. On the flop, you even have an overpair. You shouldn't overrate it, though. The bet from the player in the BB is a clear sign to give up your hand here.

There are 4 players in the pot, and you merely have the smallest possible overpair. There are a lot of possible strong draws, too. Raising would be completely overplaying your hand. If you just call, however, there are an estimated three billion cards you don't want to see on the turn.

Even if you are still ahead, chances are big someone will catch up, and you will never know where you're at with this hand. If you understand why you should even fold an overpair in this situation, you've already made quite some headway in your poker career.

How big do you bet or raise?

If you bet, you usually try to make it around 2/3 the size of the pot. If someone has bet before you and you want to raise, you should raise to 3 times his bet. The more players that have called a bet, the higher your raise should be, preferably adding another size of the bet to the size of your raise per calling player.

If you have to put more than half of your chips in the pot, however, you can just go all-in right away. You will not be able to get away from your cards later anyway, as the pot is simply too big by then.

QUIZ

Summary

This hasn't been so much to learn after all, and the strategy for play after the flop isn't that difficult or extensive, either. The reason for this is, that you don't want to get into marginal situations in the early and middle phases, and that there is hardly any play after the flop in the late phase of a Sit and Go tournament, thus limiting the postflop strategy that you need to know.

True to the motto that you only want to survive the early and the middle phase of the tournament, you can summarize the strategy for play after the flop like this: you want to hit a strong hand and to get paid off with it. If that doesn't happen, you can fold.

If you raised before the flop, any top pair or better is considered a strong hand. If you didn't raise, the strong hands start at two pair and up.

This principle is simple, but for beginners, it's not always easy to really follow it. You will keep getting into situations where you're tempted to bluff or call a bet. If you can't resist, this kind of poker might not be your cup of tea and you should try your luck at another variant, like fixed limit, where you can profitably play hands that would be unprofitable to play in Sit and Go tournaments.

If you now understood why you should play a tournament this way and in no other way, you are ready for the quiz. There are 20 questions concerning tournament strategy and your free starting money waiting for you - this could be the start of a very successful poker career.

All that's left is to wish you the best of luck, and don't forget that a lot of additional articles and videos are waiting for you in the advanced strategy sections.

LINKS
Related articles: How do you play a tournament? [http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/sng/1347/] How do you play before the flop? [http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/sng/1348] Forum discussion: Take a look additional sample hands and let professionals judge your hands on this board [http://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/board.php?boardid=1429]

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