Poker Tips – Starting Poker Hands
Starting Hand Strategy:
A good starting hand is the first and foremost key to
winning at online Texas Holdem poker, period.
The majority of the online poker community tends to overlook
this crucial element essential for winning consistently. Sure,
anyone will get lucky every now and then with a 7-2 off suit,
but to win consistently you must condition yourself to play
only hole cards with the best possible winning percentages.
So what is a good starting hand? Ace/Ace - Ace/King Suited -
King/King? There are numerous books and resources on the
internet that will give you an ANTICIPATED good starting hand
along with the win percentages for each, but here is what they
don't tell you: The strength of a good starting hand depends
greatly on the number of players left in the game AND the
number of callers. If there are 10 people seated at the table,
then a good starting hand will be quite different from a good
starting hand with only 3 players sitting at the table.
David "Einstein" Sklansky was the first author to have both
ranked every 2-card starting hand and group them along with
recommendations on how to play them. The top 16 ranked
starting hole cards are fundamental to solid play. They
constitute about 7% of all hands you will be dealt.
Table 1 - Sklansky's Group 1 hands AA KK QQ JJ AKs
Ace/Ace and King/King are substantially more powerful than
the Queen/Queen.
Table 2 - Sklansky's Group 2 hands TT AQs AJs KQs AK
The overall power of Ace/King is actually slightly greater
than that of King/Queens, so I would reverse the order of
these two hands within this Group
Out of the 10 hands in these two groups your decision to
raise should not be treated equally based upon the following:
? Raising Ace/Ace, King/King, Queen/Queen, and Ace/King
should be aggressive before the flop because these cards can
lose their value in large multi-way pots.
? Raising Ace/King, Ace/Queen, Ace/Jack, and King/Queen should
be moderate because they do play well in multi-way pots.
? Raising Jack/Jack should only be done on a tight tables in
order to run out hands such as Ace/Nine. This type of hand can
also lose value in multi-way pots.
? Raising Ten/Ten is generally not recommended.
Always consider the fact that your starting hand strength
also depends on your table position, or how many people bet
before and after you do. As a general rule, you should stick
to the conventional best starting hand percentages when there
are 8 to 10 players with 2 to 3 callers. When the field is
narrowed down to 5 players or less, you should play your
starting hands more aggressively. For example, the Ace/King
suited is often considered to be the second best starting hand
with a full table. If there are less than 5 players left, any
Ace hole card with a decent kicker can give you the same
winning percentages as the Ace/King suited would have. The
concept is very simple, you are playing the mathematical odds
implied via the 52 cards in the deck along with the
probability that fewer players will equal less chances that
someone will draw an Ace. In short, the fewer number of
players holding cards at a table, the greater your chances of
winning are.
If you are in a late position at a full table and have seen
one player wager a large bet, and there are one or two
callers, most often you can bet at the very least ONE of them
is holding a strong starting hand with high win percentages
(such as an Ace with a high kicker, suited sequence cards, or
heavy pocket pairs, etc).
If, at any given point of the game, you have five or more
players seeing the flop, then a good starting hand can often
times change to small sequence cards such as a five/six or a
small suited pairs. Reason? When over half of the players at a
table call a hand, the high cards such as Aces, Kings, and
Queens are usually tied up as hole cards thus not showing up
on the flop, turn or river. This is an excellent opportunity
for small pairs, lower straights, or any flush draw to win a
big pot. As a general rule, you should never bet the minimum
when you have an excellent starting hand unless you intend to
"limp in" and get more callers for the hand. There are times
when limping in can win you some big pots, but you shouldn't
let slow playing become a dominant strategy. It is good to bet
at least 3 to 4 times the minimum in order to run out any
possible draw hands or players who rely on luck and chance to
win a big pot early in the tournament.
Once you have mastered the basic concept of good starting
hands for every scenario, you will become a better all around
Texas Holdem player!
Brough to you by,
www.PokerSecretsSchool.com - FREE "Winning Online Texas Holdem
Poker" e-book!
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