Protecting blinds

What stage of the tournament is it? What's the buyin. Is it a pko or freeze out? What are stacks? What is the effective stack? How loose or tight is the RFI? What's your image? How deep is the Ocean? How high is the sky?

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I typically will call with a wide range if it is HU. I don't raise much because I don't like playing OOP in a big pot so my weak 3-bet range is rarely used. But there are times I raise with decent PP's or hands like AK/AQ/AJ.

If Villain raises a lot (so wide range) I will 3-bet a bit more. But if they constantly cbet and bet the turn I often will not 3-bet and then call them down with pairs or better.

This happened in a tournament in the Orleans recently. An Asian older man, who had been raising and triple barreling frequently rarely having to show his hand, raised in the CO. I called with K4o in the BB. The flop was KK4 two hearts and I checked he bet and I called. The turn was a 3 I checked he bet fairly large and I hesitated and called. The river was like a 7 and I checked and he thought for a while and jammed. Lol. I called and because we both had to turn over our cards I just turned mine over. He did not have a flush draw but basically had 88 (though I never saw the second 8 so it could have been 87 or 8 high).

Studying with a solver/equity calculator has been helpful for me. Of course, you have to adjust for the fact that not everyone will be playing an optimal range.

You are incentivized to defend a lot of hands because of the ante in tournaments, which dramatically changes strategy. I like looking at the EV, not just the solver's decision, as it helps me understand which hands are clear defends and which are more marginal.