Poker Strategy – Before the Flop – Part 1

By: Lou Krieger

Deciding whether to see the flop with your first two cards is generally the most important decision you'll make playing hold'em. Choosing to play or toss your cards away is really a decision about investing money in a pot with hopes of winning it. It's a decision you have to make each time you're dealt a hand. So important is this decision that many experts suggest just playing correctly before the flop, at least in low-limit games, is enough to turn a loser into a break-even player, and a break-even player to a winner.

Why Some Decisions Are Much More Important Than Others

Certain decisions are much more important than others, usually for one of two reasons. Some are important because you encounter them every time you play a hand נlike deciding whether to see the flop. Frequency of occurrence makes these decisions critical.

Decisions are also important if they can cost you a great deal of money. Here's an example. Assume you hold the best hand after all the cards are out, but decide to call your opponent, rather than raise. While this is a bad decision, it's not an important one, since it costs you only one bet. However, if you were bet into by a habitual bluffer and mucked the best hand, that decision is important. It cost you the entire pot. In fact, if you win at a rate of two bets per hour, and that pot contained fifteen bets, it will take you an entire day's play to recoup.

Poker's Essential Decision

Every time you play poker you're continually confronted with this decision: Given all variables, do the cards I hold offer a positive expectation? If the answer is yes, play on. If the answer is no, wait for the next hand.

That decision is made up of many components. You have to compare the odds of making the best hand with the payoff offered by the expected size of the pot. But the mathematical odds against making your hand compared with the pot odds are not all you have to consider. It's further complicated because you must also account for the game being loose or tight, passive or aggressive נwith skilled or unskilled players. This is referred to as the game's texture.

Here's an example. Assume you hold a reasonably good drawing hand like J-T suited in a game with lots of raising before the flop, but not many callers. Your hand is much less valuable in that game than in one where you could expect many callers and little raising נwhich allows you to draw to your hand at minimal cost.

The opposite can also be true. Suppose you've been dealt a pair of aces or kings, and two people call the blind before it's your turn to act. Now you must raise. You want to get more money in the pot from those who have already called. Moreover, you must try to eliminate potential callers who might call with a hand like 9-8 suited, but wouldn't cold-call a raise in front of them. While aces or kings are an overwhelming heavy favorite against 9-8 when played heads up, the more participants in a pot, the better the chances that one of them will outdraw you.

Most players who enter a pot for one bet will call a raise when the action gets back to them. When holding a big pair, your raise will get more money in the pot from fewer players. Calling is a weak play because more opponents increase the likelihood that someone who wouldn't otherwise have played if he had to cold-call a raise will get lucky.

Playing a Big Pair When Someone Raises in Front of You

In fact, if you hold a big pair before the flop, you should welcome a raise ahead of you. Your reraise should then eliminate all but the truest kamikazes as well as players holding premium hands. The secret to playing big pairs is to play them against fewer, rather than many opponents, while locking those opponents into as many bets as you can garner. If a player does call your reraise with a hand he should have thrown away, your reraise gave him that opportunity to make a mistake.

How To Play Your Starting Cards

What should you expect to find in the two cards dealt to you before the flop? Sometimes you'll be dealt a pair. If there's no pair in your hands, the cards will be either suited or not. They also can be connected (K-Q, 8-7, 4-3). If not connected, they might be one-, two- or three-gapped (K-J, 9-7, or 5-2). While you can make a straight with one-, two- or three-gapped cards, the smaller the gap, the easier it is to make a straight. Suppose you hold 10-6. Your only straight possibility is 9-8-7. But if you hold 10-9, you can make a straight with K-Q-J, Q-J-8, J-8-7, and 8-7-6.

Cards that are neither suited nor paired, unconnected, and four-gapped or larger should not be played under normal circumstances.

Since you can be dealt only 169 different two-card combinations before the flop, learning to play them is not as tough as you might think. Each possible two-card holding is shown on this chart. This Startchart assumes any pair is equal to any other pair of the same rank before the flop, and suited cards of the same rank have equal preflop value. For example, prior to the flop, the K-Q of clubs is identical in value to the K-Q of diamonds. But if the flop were to bring three diamonds, then the K-Q of diamonds could be priceless, and the K-Q of clubs might be worthless, and unplayable.

Once you notice that hands are arrayed in descending order and are able to visualize this array without actually looking at it, it's not difficult to memorize this chart. Your mind's eye will see the deployment of playable hands from early to middle to late position.

Playable hands in early position begin with big pairs and big connectors, which fan out from the chart's upper left-hand corner. Middle- and late-position hands are tucked under the curve formed by the early-position hands, and unplayable two-card holdings are located toward the right hand side of the charts. With a little work you should be able to commit this to memory. Try visualizing it. You'll find it easier to memorize than if it were in list format.

Notice that you'll play far fewer hands in early position. You'll also find that suited cards have a lot more value than unsuited cards of equal rank. If you're new to the game, been playing indiscriminately, or have an any-two-cards-can-win philosophy, you may believe these starting requirements are too tight. To the contrary, they are somewhat loose. And if you neglect to modify these starting hands for game conditions, you'll find them far too loose. That's important! The strategic plan embodied in the Startchart is not a formula to blindly follow. If the pot has been raised in front of you, you will need to tighten up significantly on the hands you play, particularly those played from early position. Let me emphasize this point. If a player who acts before you raises, you need to tighten up significantly, and throw away many of the hands you'd play if the pot had not been raised.

We'll look at more in Part 2 of this series.