When you’re playing no-limit hold’em the vast majority of hands are played heads-up. When there’s a raise, and particularly a reraise preflop there’s often only one taker, and so only two players play on. Because of this, most strategy you read (and the vast majority of playing experience you have) will cover those head-to-head ‘who will blink first’ moments. Playing in pots where multiple players have gone to the flop is an entirely different scenario.
The essential thing you have to adjust in your head is your odds calculations. If you’ve got pocket Kings on a Queen-high board in a heads-up pot you know you’re in pretty good shape, but when you’re up against multiple callers your stranglehold on the pot is a lot more precarious. Imagine the blinds are 20/40 and you raise to 120 from early position with Kd-Kh. If the next person calls it can start a chain reaction of calls as each player will be getting increasingly attractive pot odds to make the call, especially considering how early in the tournament it is.
If the board comes Queen-high and you were called by 6c-6h, Js-9s and Ad-4d you’ve got over 50% equity in the pot (according to PokerStove), but the problem is that the times you are losing, you’re going to lose a lot if you’re not careful, whereas the times you win you’re not going to scalp that much – unless you’re playing a newbie who is prepared to stack off with an A-Q type hand. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be getting value from your big hands in multi-way pots, but be aware that you could be facing a much wider range of hands than you might expect.
Calling for value
On the other hand, you can afford to enter multi-way pots with a looser selection of hands in limped or called pots. If there’s a raise and a call and you’re on the button with 6d-4d and it’s costing you 5% of your stack to call, you’re in great shape to join the party, especially as your call may invite the big blind along for the ride. You’ve now got position and a hand like 6d-4d can not only flop big, it’s a relatively safe hand to get involved with. On the flop you’ll know where you are and whether you’re bluffing, have the nuts or are drawing to it. It’s unlikely you’ll get sucked into paying someone off with second pair!
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