7 Tournament Tips to Help You Run Deep

24 May 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

Let’s level up your tournament poker skills. Today, I’m going to share seven fundamental tips that will help you run deeper and play with more confidence in tournaments. My name is Mike Brady, and I’m flying solo for this episode! These tips were originally written by a true legend in the tournament poker world: Miikka Anttonen. He’s a Finnish poker pro who posted some incredible results during his career, so you can definitely trust the advice.

With antes in play, a standard raise to 2.25 big blinds only needs to work less than half the time to be immediately profitable—and that’s before considering your hand’s postflop potential. The phrase “open small and often” was the cornerstone of preflop strategy for tournament regulars for years — and it still holds up, because the math supports it.

For example, imagine you're in a tournament where the blinds are 200/400 with a 400 big blind ante. Let’s say you have a deep stack — around 40,000 chips, which equals 100 big blinds. You’re on the button with  , and the action folds to you.

You raise to 900 — 2.25 big blinds. This raise only needs to work about 47.8% of the time to show an immediate profit. And if the blinds are relatively tight, which is often the case, especially in live tournaments, there’s a good chance they aren’t collectively defending more than 52.2% of hands. If they’re not, your raise is already profitable — even if you were holding two napkins in your hand.

Now, even if the blinds are playing back at you more than 52.2% of the time, that’s still fine. Why? Because this math doesn’t account for the many ways you can win after the flop. Sometimes you’ll connect with the board and win at showdown. Other times, a simple continuation bet will take down the pot. There are plenty of ways to win postflop.

Now, if the players in the blinds are loose and/or aggressive, you’ll want to tighten up a bit. But you might be surprised by how wide you can still raise on the button, even against fairly aggressive opponents.

Take this for example: here’s the default open-raising range from the button with 100 big blinds, taken from Upswing Poker’s advanced tournament course Road to Victory, created by elite tournament pros Nick Petrangelo and Darren Elias:

According to this chart, at Nash Equilibrium — that is, how a solver would play the spot — you can raise 53.7% of hands from the button for a 2.8x open when it folds to you. That includes hands like  ,  ,  ,  , and even  . It’s a super wide range.

And remember: This is assuming your opponents play back as aggressively as a poker solver would. If you know anything about solvers, you know they’re absolutely savage. Your human opponents? Probably not as fierce. That means you might even be able to raise wider than this in practice.

This chart should be seen as a baseline. If you have reads or data on the players in the blinds, you can and should adjust your strategy. In some cases, it’s even correct to raise any two cards from the button.

But if you're up against very aggressive players, you’ll want to tighten your opening range and cut out the weakest hands. For example, if both the small and big blind are hyper-aggressive, I’m not going to be raising hands like   or  . I’ll just fold those and let the tough players go at it.

Earlier, we talked about how a small raise only needs to work about half the time to be profitable. Well, as the big blind, it’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen too easily. One of the key reasons you can defend your big blind more often is thanks to the very favorable pot odds you’re getting in that position.

You’ve already posted one big blind, and most raises are only to about 2x or 2.25x, sometimes 3x. That means you’re getting a solid discount to see the flop. For example, let’s say the blinds are 200/400 with a 400 big blind ante, and you’re sitting in the big blind. A late position player raises to 900, and now the action is on you. You only need to call 500 chips into a pot that already contains 1,900 chips.

Based on the pot odds, that means you need just 20.8% equity to call profitably. That’s not much at all. Even 7-2 offsuit has around 29% equity against a standard button opening range. But here’s the important part: You can’t just defend based on raw equity. Why? Because equity alone doesn’t account for what happens postflop, and you’re playing out of position.

To truly benefit from that equity, you need to “realize” it — in other words, you need to reach showdown. But with a hand like  , that rarely happens. More often, you’ll miss the flop, face a continuation bet, and fold — never getting to see that turn card where a 7 might’ve helped you win. So while   might technically have 29% equity, you rarely get to use all of it, especially out of position. That’s why you need to defend tighter than the raw numbers suggest.

For example, against a button raise, fold hands like   or   — they’re just not going to do much for you. But hands like   or  ? Now you’re talking. Those hands can make straights, two pairs, or decent top pairs, and are worth defending with. You can clearly flop some decent hands, like pairs or draws, that are worth defending, especially against a button raise.

Let’s take a look at a sample defense range. This one comes from the Advanced Road to Victory tournament course on Upswing Poker. It shows the big blind defense range versus a button open at 50 big blinds.

The range is quite wide. You’re calling with 66.4% of hands and 3-betting with 12.8%, which means you’re defending with roughly 79% of all hands. Only around 21% are being folded to a small button raise. This includes hands as weak as  ,  , and  . In fact, every suited hand is being called. Why? Because the pot odds are good, and these hands have enough postflop potential to justify a call — even out of position.

If defending this wide makes you uncomfortable, that’s totally fine. You can tighten up a bit — especially if you’re still building your postflop skills. Just be careful not to overfold. For instance, you should never fold hands like   or   to a single small raise. These hands are simply too strong.

Personally, I’ll call with almost any two cards against a weak opponent’s raise. I know I can outplay them postflop and therefore realize more equity due to my skill advantage. So, I defend very wide against weaker players. But even against elite players, someone like Nick Petrangelo, I’m not folding   or   in a heads-up pot. And that brings us to an important consideration: defending your big blind in multiway pots.

Multiway pots are a different beast. Here your pot odds improve because more players are contributing chips. But realizing equity becomes harder with more opponents. In heads-up pots, something like top pair or even second pair can be good enough to win. If I defend the big blind with   and the flop is   , that’s a strong hand in a heads-up scenario. It’s tough for your opponent to have something better.

But now imagine the same flop in a 4-way pot. Suddenly, even calling a c-bet with a middle pair becomes questionable. Someone might have an overpair, two pairs, or a strong draw. Even with a hand as solid as  , you might be forced to fold.

You can still call with most suited hands, and connected offsuit hands like   often hold up well. But stay away from disconnected offsuit hands like   — these hands make weak pairs, rarely improve, and often get dominated. They're the types of hands that will struggle to reach showdown, which makes them poor candidates in multi-way scenarios.

Moving on to tip number three: be wary of 4-bet shoves when you're 3-betting with middling stacks. I’m talking about stacks between roughly 25 and 40 big blinds. Since you’ll be 3-betting with very strong hands like pocket aces and ace-king suited, you need to balance those with some 3-bet “bluffs” to keep your strategy unpredictable. 

However, the specific hands you use to 3-bet bluff depend heavily on your stack size. With 25 to 40 big blinds, you want to 3-bet bluff with hands slightly worse than your call-worthy hands. For example, suppose you’re in the cutoff and the hijack raises. Good 3-bet bluffs here include hands like  ,  , and  . These are just below calling hands like  ,  , or  .

If your opponent 4-bets all-in against your 3-bet, you’ll have to fold these bluff hands. That’s not a big deal because you were likely crushed anyway. But if you 3-bet with a stronger hand, say king-queen suited, and then have to fold to a 4-bet shove, you’re throwing away a lot of equity, which you want to avoid. So king-queen suited usually just calls the initial raise at around 30 big blinds; it never 3-bets or folds, preferring to call instead, according to charts from the Advanced Tournament Course Road to Victory.

Key takeaway: When you 3-betting non-all-in with middling stacks, either have a very strong hand — one you welcome a 4-bet shove with, like aces, kings, or ace-king suited — or have a hand that’s happy to fold against a 4-bet shove, like  ,  , or  . These hands are worth playing and attacking the raise with, aiming to take down the pot preflop, but won’t cause much heartache if you have to fold to a 4-bet shove.

Tip number four? Also about 3-betting — but now with deep stacks. When your stack’s deep in a tournament, think cash game style. Unlike those middling stacks where things get tricky, once you’re close to 100 big blinds, 3-betting changes gears. The right move? Play a linear, or merged, range. That means your 3-bet range isn’t just the nuts — pocket aces, kings, ace-king suited — but also some solid, playable hands just below that elite tier.

Let me pull up a chart from the Advanced Tournament Course Road to Victory — this one shows how the cutoff should respond to a hijack raise with 100 big blinds. Same position as before, but this time, deep stacks.

You get to call more often here because the pot odds are juicy — small raises, antes in the pot — so calling is attractive. But your 3-bet range? Totally different from the mid-stack example. You’re 3-betting the cream of the crop — aces, kings, ace-king suited — plus strong playable hands like  ,  ,  . And don’t forget those playable suited connectors:  ,  ,   — the kinds of hands that shine postflop.

When your 3-bet gets called deep, you’re ready to rumble postflop with a strong, varied range. Whatever flop hits, you’ve got a piece of it — making you tough to read and even tougher to beat. If a 4-bet lands? No sweat. You’ve got enough hands that can either call or push back with a 5-bet shove.

A decade or so back, players didn’t think too hard about board texture or opponents’ ranges. Even solid players c-bet nearly every flop. Why? Because a half-pot continuation bet only needs to work about 33% of the time to be profitable — and back then, it often did. Big blinds were tight, folding too much to c-bets. Check-raises were rare. That made constant c-betting a winning move.

Fast forward to today, and players have wised up. They know when to fold, when to call, when to raise. So you can’t just blindly c-bet anymore. You’ve got to think through your continuation bet strategy — which boards connect with your range, which players you’re up against, and when it makes sense to hold back.

Here’s a smart framework Miikka Anttonen recommends — four quick questions to ask yourself whenever you’re staring down a flop, wondering whether to fire that continuation bet:

• Question one: Whose range does this flop favor the most?
• Question two: Who’s likely holding the strongest hands here?
• Question three: Will my opponent think this flop hits my range?
• Question four: What does my opponent’s overall range even look like?

No need for deep, time-consuming analysis — just quick, logical instincts. Let’s walk through an example. Imagine you raised from under the gun, and now you’re on a    flop facing the big blind. Your range? Tight and packed with high cards — not many speculative hands since you’re early position.

First question: who does this flop hit better?

Answer: The big blind. Sure, you’ve got overpairs like pocket tens or kings that might fare well, but you also have plenty of overcards — ace-king, king-queen — that totally missed a flop here. Meanwhile, the big blind is far more likely to connect: suited connectors like  ,  , or even   for a straight draw. Bottom line? This flop fits their range more snugly than yours.

Second question: who’s got the strongest hands?

Answer: Again, your opponent. You might both hold sets (pocket tens, poket eights, pocket sixes) roughly equal. But they have the straights and two pairs, and you probably don’t. You likely wouldn’t raise preflop with hands like  or  .

So they hold what we call the “nut advantage”. Sure, you might have overpairs, but on a    board, even   aren’t close to invincible. You wouldn’t want to commit 50+ big blinds here, because you’re almost always in trouble if it goes that deep.

Third question: will your opponent think this flop hits your range?

Answer: Yeah, they probably will. Your range’s mostly pocket pairs and high cards like suited broadways,  ,  t. It’s pretty readable. That means your opponent can put you on a tight, predictable range — mostly overcards and overpairs. Not ideal. So far, all signs say this flop favors your opponent, not you.

Finally, question four: What does my opponent’s range actually look like?

Now this one’s tricky — especially if you don’t have any reads. Everyone defends their big blind differently, right? But here’s a safe bet: no matter who you’re up against, their range is packed with one-pair-plus-straight-draw hands. Think   on this    board, or  , or  .

And plenty of players will have 9-7 suited or offsuit — adding even more straights to their mix. Add in two-pairs like  ,  , or  , and you’ve got a range that hits this flop way more often than yours does.

So what do we learn from all this? The big blind holds all the super strong hands — you don’t. And most of their range? They’ll happily call at least one bet. That means it’s a terrible idea to just blast a c-bet every single time with air on this board. Instead, check back some of your missed hands.

Bluff selectively with hands that can fire multiple barrels across different runouts — like  . Why? Because Q-J suited packs two overcards, a straight draw, and maybe a backdoor flush draw. That’s a weapon worth betting. But if you’re holding something like   or  , no, don’t be firing off a c-bet every time on this    flop. 

Once you train yourself to ask these four questions at every flop, it’ll only take a quick moment to map out your next move. But honestly, just making this question routine — every single flop — will cover most real-world scenarios fast and effectively.

Mastering these tips, especially the art of thoughtful 3-betting with deep stacks and the smart, situational use of continuation bets — can seriously elevate your tournament game. Poker isn’t just about the cards you hold; it’s about understanding ranges, adapting your strategy in real time, and making decisions that keep your opponents guessing.

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