Issue 021: 5 Things Good Players Never Do (Tournament Edition)

The drive home is where Ace-King gets blamed for everything. Meanwhile, those three “cheap” calls before the bust-out hand somehow never make it into the story.

This week, we’re fixing five tournament habits that quietly eat our stacks. “Never” means habits good players work to eliminate—not a claim that they’ve never made a mistake.

GTO4OMC Weekly is the FREE companion learning experience for every GTO4OMC YouTube episode. The video teaches the concepts. Here, you reinforce them, tackle new poker situations, and practice until the lessons stick.

Explore the learning guide and glossary, test your understanding with the first two questions, and use your free subscription to unlock all ten quiz questions, detailed explanations of every answer, and the OMC Cheat Sheet. Free subscribers also get the Preflop Flash Cards for extra practice.

Learning a poker concept is one thing. Remembering it in a big pot is another! That's why free GTO4OMC Weekly subscribers get access to our Preflop Flash Cards. Choose your position, practice nine-handed, 40-BB tournament opening ranges, and get immediate feedback on every decision. Build confidence through repetition—then bring that practice to the table.

These flash cards practice 40-BB opening ranges. For shorter stacks and payout-sensitive spots, adjust to the situation rather than applying those ranges unchanged.

5 Things Good Players Never Do — Tournament Edition

The final hand is easy to remember. Ace-King missed, pocket Fours held, and that’s the story we tell on the way home. The less memorable decisions can be just as important: the limp because we were bored, the speculative call after the blinds went up, or the river call we made because we “had to see it.”

This guide is about recognizing those habits before they become expensive. Good players still make mistakes. What they work to remove is the automatic decision—the one made without checking position, effective stack, opponent, price, and payout pressure.

We’ll connect each habit to a practical decision, then use fresh hypothetical exercises to test the ideas. The goal isn’t to memorize five commandments or pretend every spot has one fixed answer. It’s to notice what changed and make a deliberate choice. These examples concern standard No-Limit Hold’em tournaments; they aren’t solver-prescribed ranges or a guide to satellite and bounty formats.

You’ve folded for half an hour. Your coffee has gone cold, and the same bad-beat story has somehow reached its third telling. Then you find King-Ten offsuit in early position at a nine-handed table. It’s tempting to call it playable simply because it’s better than the last twelve hands.

But the deck doesn’t owe us a playable hand. The useful questions are about position, stacks, and the players behind us. In early position, there are more people left to act, and we will often have to act first after the flop. A hand that looks attractive in isolation can create difficult decisions.

The script’s “cheap flop” becomes a payment plan: we limp, somebody raises, other players call, and suddenly we persuade ourselves to put in more. Getting a better-looking price doesn’t erase the original problem—we entered without a good reason.

Now move the same King-Ten to the button after everyone folds. Different position, different opportunity. That doesn’t mean every button hand is an automatic raise. It means the situation must do the deciding.

For beginners, raise or fold when first into the pot outside the small blind is a useful default. It isn’t a universal ban on limping; the small blind has legitimate limping strategies. While folding, stay involved by watching who calls too much and who raises only strong hands.

OMC takeaway: Play the situation—not the length of time since your last decent hand.

You started with 40,000 chips and still have 30,000. That sounds reassuring until you notice that the big blind is now 2,000. Divide your current stack by the current big blind: 30,000 ÷ 2,000 = 15 BB. The percentage of your starting stack that remains tells you very little about your options now.

Consider the script’s button hand: Seven-Six suited facing a tight early-position raise to 3 BB. Calling costs one-fifth of a 15-BB stack before you see a flop. If you miss, face a bet, and fold, the pot may feel small—but the piece of your tournament you spent was substantial.

Speculative hands benefit from room to win more chips when they connect. With a short stack, there may not be enough money behind to justify paying now in the hope of winning a large pot later. “It’s suited” is a description, not a complete reason to call.

Check the other stack as well. If you have 50 BB and your opponent has 15 BB at the start of the hand, the effective stack between you is 15 BB. You can only win or lose that amount against that player; having more chips yourself doesn’t increase what they can pay.

This doesn’t turn 15-BB poker into “shove everything.” Raises, calls, and folds can all remain part of a sound plan. The lesson is to assess the actual price and available reward, then recalculate whenever the blinds rise.

OMC takeaway: Count your stack in big blinds—not by how impressive it looks sitting next to your coffee.

“I would have gone all-in with this hand anyway, so I might as well call.” That sounds consistent. It actually skips the most important change in the hand: someone else has already made the aggressive move.

In the script, you have 12 BB on the button with Ace-Nine suited. Everyone folds to you, there are antes in the pot, and you’re well away from an important payout. An open shove can be a reasonable option because it has two routes to winning: everyone can fold, or you can win the showdown when called.

Now a tight early-position player shoves 12 BB before the action reaches you. The cards are the same, but you cannot make that player fold by calling. One route to winning has disappeared. Their early-position shoving range also matters; it need not resemble the hands you would attack the blinds with from the button.

The useful question becomes: how does my hand perform against this player’s likely shoving range, at this price? Against a looser late-position range, you may be able to call more hands. Against a tight early-position range, more caution makes sense. Payout pressure can make a marginal call less attractive still.

These are illustrative situations, not a universal push/fold chart. A hand can work as an open shove and still be a fold against somebody else’s shove. Treat the two decisions separately instead of giving the hand one permanent label.

OMC takeaway: Being willing to put someone else to a decision doesn’t mean you should automatically accept theirs.

You have A♠ K♦ on a K♣ 8♥ 2♥ flop. There are 4,000 chips in the pot. A passive opponent checks, you bet 3,000, and they call. The turn is 3♠; they check, you bet 5,000, and they call again. The pot is now 20,000. On the Q♥ river, that same player suddenly leads for 20,000.

The heart draw got there. K-Q improved to two pair. Weaker pairs could theoretically become bluffs, but that requires this particular opponent to turn a made hand into a large bluff against the player who has bet twice. Their previous big bets at showdown have been strong. We haven’t seen evidence that they take this bluffing line, and we don’t expect worse kings to make this value bet.

Now calculate the price. Calling 20,000 creates a final pot of 20,000 + 20,000 + 20,000 = 60,000. Ignoring ties, the chip break-even threshold is 20,000 ÷ 60,000 = 33.3%. If our hand only beats bluffs, roughly one-third of the opponent’s betting range must be bluffs.

“Maybe he’s bluffing” doesn’t establish that frequency. On this board, against this player, after this action, the script’s decision is to fold. We don’t need to see the flush to justify it. The chips we put in earlier belong to the pot; they don’t obligate us to invest more.

Don’t turn that into “always fold to large bets.” An opponent who bluffs too often can make calling right. The pot odds tell you the price; the range and player evidence help decide whether it’s worth paying.

OMC takeaway: Curiosity shouldn’t be factored into a pot-odds calculation.

OMCs know how to wait. We can fold, drink coffee, and fold some more. But patience isn’t the same as waiting exclusively for Aces while the blinds reduce our options. A plan that made sense earlier may need to change as the stacks and payouts change.

Far from the money, the script gives us 12 BB on the button with Ace-Jack suited after everyone folds. An open shove is often a strong option. Rejecting it only because somebody might call confuses avoiding risk with making a good decision. We still have to choose sensible hands and situations; being proactive doesn’t mean shoving without thought.

Now move to one elimination from the money. Several players have tiny stacks, while the chip leader puts our medium stack at risk. Folding a decent hand can be excellent poker. We aren’t contradicting the earlier lesson—we’re responding to a different situation.

ICM, the Independent Chip Model, estimates a stack’s prize-money value from the stacks and payout structure. Losing chips can hurt our prize-money prospects more than winning the same number helps. That pressure matters throughout an event and can become especially important around the bubble and large pay jumps.

A big stack may find opportunities to pressure opponents protecting their tournament lives. A medium stack may need to avoid marginal confrontations with a player who covers it. Neither observation supplies a universal answer for every hand. The other stacks, opponent’s range, and payouts still matter. These examples assume a standard tournament, not a satellite or bounty format.

OMC takeaway: Be patient with your cards. Be proactive with your plan.

Before your next decision, build a short chain of questions. Why this hand, from this position? That checks whether boredom is choosing for you. How many big blinds are actually at risk? That brings both stacks and the cost of continuing into focus. Can my action make the opponent fold? That keeps a shove and a call from being treated as the same decision.

If you’re considering a call, calculate the price and then identify the hands you beat. Don’t skip from “a bluff is possible” to “there are enough bluffs.” Finally, consider whether the current stacks and payouts change how much risk the decision deserves. A profitable-looking chip exchange and a good prize-money decision aren’t automatically identical.

After the session, review the decision separately from the result. A well-reasoned all-in can lose. A curiosity call can occasionally win. Neither result, by itself, proves that the habit was sound. Pick the one habit that causes you the most trouble and make it your focus next time. You don’t need to overhaul your whole game before Saturday.

A quick reference to this week’s important poker terms.

1. Big blind (BB) — The unit used to measure your stack and bet sizes. Divide your chips by the current big blind: 30,000 at a 2,000 BB is 15 BB.

2. Effective stack — The smaller of the two stacks involved in a heads-up matchup; it limits how much those players can win or lose against each other.

3. Position — Where you act relative to the other players. Acting later gives you more information before choosing your action.

4. Open-limp — Calling the big blind when no one has entered the pot voluntarily before you. Small-blind limps can have a legitimate strategic role.

5. Speculative hand — A hand, such as suited connectors, that often needs to improve and win more chips later to justify the initial investment.

6. Open shove — Moving all-in as the first player to enter the pot voluntarily. It can win the blinds and antes without a showdown.

7. Fold equity — The benefit from the chance that opponents fold to your bet or raise. Calling an all-in cannot make the shover fold.

8. Range — The collection of hands an opponent could plausibly hold, informed by position, action, sizing, and observed tendencies.

9. Pot odds — The price of a call relative to the final pot after calling. With no ties or future betting, call amount ÷ final pot gives the chip break-even win rate.

10. ICM and payout pressure — The Independent Chip Model estimates prize-money value from stack sizes and payouts. Losing chips can hurt more than winning the same amount helps, especially near bubbles and pay jumps.

The Myth: “Good tournament players stay patient by waiting for premium hands at every stage.”

The Reality: Patience is useful; refusing to adjust isn’t. With a short stack far from the money, an unopened pot may offer a sensible chance to apply pressure and win the blinds and antes. Rejecting every such opportunity because somebody might call lets the blinds make decisions for you. Near the bubble, a medium stack facing a covering chip leader may have good reasons to avoid a marginal confrontation, especially with several shorter stacks still alive. Neither situation justifies an absolute rule. The cards, positions, effective stacks, opponent’s range, and payouts determine which risk makes sense. Good discipline can mean taking an opportunity or passing one up.

The OMC Lesson: Be patient with your cards. Be proactive with your plan.

The Setup: The episode’s illustrative river hand: you hold A♠ K♦ in position against a passive opponent in a standard No-Limit Hold’em tournament. Both players have enough chips remaining for the river bet and call below.

The Action: On K♣ 8♥ 2♥, the pot is 4,000. Your opponent checks, you bet 3,000, and they call. On the 3♠ turn, they check, you bet 5,000, and they call. The pot is now 20,000. The Q♥ river completes the flush, and your opponent leads for 20,000. Their previous big bets shown at showdown have been strong.

What would you do? Call with top pair/top kicker—or fold? Identify the hands you expect to beat before looking at the lesson.

The Lesson: Fold against the described range and player tendencies. A 20,000 call creates a 60,000 final pot, so we need to win about 33.3% of the time to break even in chips, ignoring ties. Heart draws got there, K-Q improved, and we don’t expect this opponent to value-bet a worse king at this size. We also haven’t seen evidence that they turn weaker pairs into large river bluffs. “Maybe he’s bluffing” doesn’t establish enough bluffs to pay this price. Our previous bets aren’t a reason to call again. Against a player who bluffs this spot too often, the decision can change; this is a read-based fold, not a blanket rule against large bets.

Let’s see what you’ve learned. The first two questions are free to try right here. Choose the best answer to each new hypothetical situation before moving on.

At a nine-handed tournament table, you’ve folded for 35 minutes. You find J♦ T♣ under the gun. Which is the strongest basis for deciding whether to enter the pot?

A. You’re due a playable hand after folding so often.

B. Your position, stack depth, and the players still to act.

C. Limping is always safe because it costs only one big blind.

D. The last player who limped won a large pot.

You began with 40,000 chips. You now have 27,000, and the current big blind is 1,500. How many big blinds do you have?

A. 27 BB

B. 15 BB

C. 40 BB

D. 18 BB

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