Poker

With 169 different Texas Hold Em hands to start with its hard to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em in the game. A person has to ask themselves, should I play this 76 suited or should I fold? Should I raise with my pocket queens when there’s an ace king on the flop? Knowing which hands to play pre flop and how to play them once you get to the flop are two totally different skills.

Before the flop you have two cards in front of you. You have to decide whether or not you want to play your hand based on probability, the number of players at the table, your position to the dealer button at the table, and the previous hand selection of your opponents. In a loose game it may be safer to play 76 suited in middle position, whereas in a tight game you don’t even really want to play the hand in late position. A loose game consists of many people taking cheap flops to see who can wind up with the best hand on the flop. By cheap flop I mean no one is really raising the pot before the flop, or they’re simply doubling the blind. In loose games the pot odds are better for you to play different hands because there is so much money in the pot compared to what you are investing into it.

For example, if there are 10 players at the table and eight or nine people are consistently calling pre flop with a $2 blind, that gives you between $16-$18 in the pot before seeing the flop. Being that you know the table isn’t going to raise pre-flop, or if they do the pot will be somewhere around $32 and you only have to invest in $4 to see that flop, you haven’t really put that much into the pot compared to what you can win. This would be known as investment or implied odds. You aren’t investing much into the pot for the chance at making a good chunk of change.

Now if the table is playing tight, and players are raising with good hands, then you really don’t want to be playing without having a great starting hand. Great starting hands would include pocket aces through pocket sevens, ace king, ace queen, ace jack, and ace ten. King queen all the way down to king nine suited would also fall into this category, as would jack ten and queen jack. The tighter the table, the less likely you should be playing a lot of different hands. Why you ask? Your investment and implied odds are worse when less players are playing. If four people are seeing the flop and they’ve tripled the blind you are now investing $6 into a pot for a chance at $24. Instead of being 1 out of 8 in the loose table example, you are now 1 of 4, therefore you want a better hand that has a better chance of winning.

If you’re in early position you don’t want to be playing bad hands because this also eliminates your chance at knowing what the rest of the table is holding. You come out with a feeler bet from early position on the flop, the guy next to you can quadruple your bet still leaving other players to act. If you play a weaker hand from late position you have a better gauge on what everyone else at the table is doing because you get to bet after them.