Pre Flop Strategy in Texas Holdem games
One of the more positive things that a poker player can do to improve your career is to improve their game before the flop. The importance of a good game pre-flop is even greater in the No Limit mode, since, on many occasions, lost the strategic confrontation that characterized the modalities of Limit rounds the turn and river.
The strategy that we use in the first round of betting (preflop) will be developed by observing five variables: our letters, players who are on hand, the previous action, our cards (stack) and our position.
a) Our letters:
To win at poker you must play with good cards. The world’s best players tend to be very solid, constant, devoted himself to administer the small advantage they get in the long run because they always play with better cards than the others. We must have discipline and not be afraid to give up with trouble holdem hands.
We only play with potentially winning card combinations. So a hand like KJ hardly make us win a big pot, while the median pairs, like 7-7, 8-8 or 9-9, can become very profitable if we form the flopped set
The same happens with other more speculative hands such as suited connectors (connected cards of one suit). We must be aware at all times that the important thing is that when our hand is favored on the flop, chances of getting a large pot. Accordingly, if we have very strong starting Texas Holdem hands (AA, KK or QQ), we always come up with force, to prevent other players to enter the contest looking for these flops good for your speculative hands like small pairs or suited connectors.
b) Number of players involved in hand:
The fewer players there are on hand, the more likely we are to take the pot. It is therefore important to raise the stakes if we have really strong hands. We do not want is that many players enter, nor that the pot is large. After all, as it increases the number of players and the pot, the pot itself will be offering enough chances (pot odds) to continue entering players into contention.
And we know that the more Texas Holdem players enter the hand, the more likely it is that some of them get a very favorable flop, leaving us without our initial advantage.
c) Previous Action:
If any player has bet or gone up the bet, and we have a good hand, must be aware of that makes any difference we have already put money into the pot or not. That is why we must never do CALL preflop with hands like AJ or KQ, because if someone resubir the bet later, we are committed – and it is true that our rivals will have premium hands.
Thus, for example, if we call with AJ and another player makes a reraise, we must avoid the temptation to follow the hand we have already invested money in the pot. A flop with an ace does not guarantee success or a flop J-5-7, since it is very likely that, facing a reraise, are facing a pair of upper hand to our valet (QQ, KK or AA).
d) Our chips (stack):
The size of our stack is also a factor to be taken into account. If, for example, have a big stack, and in comes a couple – like 8-8 – can participate in the hand without problems, even knowing that any player with fewer chips will raise the bet or go all-in.
We know we can experience this all-in “, as we cover the rivals and may even rise significantly bet – to make clear our intentions. Moreover, this same hand (8-8) – in early position and if we have a short stack – perhaps not advisable to play. That’s because we know that two or three rivals pay the bet, and, unfortunately, hardly a pair like 8-8 takes the pot against three or more players.
e) Our position:
As we are constantly reminding the position is the key variable in almost all forms of poker. We must always take into consideration our position in the table. The closer we get to those who act finally, we will have more access to the best information possible about the round and its participants before reaching our time to act. Thus, we play more efficiently, gaining as much as possible and minimizing losses.
If we’re on the other hand, in the first positions, the initial information in our possession will only be on our own cards. We will have no idea what they have – or what they think – the people who play later, with what we should reduce our movements to a minimum.
The more distant we are from the blinds, the more advantage we have, and we should play more hands.
Useful Tips for Pre-Flop
- Better not be tempted to raise with speculative letters (suited connectors). The only case where it would be helpful to perform this action would be to want to give a wrong idea to the opponents, so do not think we go up only with strong hands.
- It is best to raise and reraise with pairs larger than 10-10.
- We should never pass – it means not to “slow play” – with pocket aces.
- In any position, it should only play really strong hands, with all others, we must study in detail the other variables such as position, number of players, so our stack.
The pairs and double pairs earn 67% of hands in Texas Hold’em poker variant. That is why we have a great starting hand (AA, KK, QQ) does not guarantee us victory, we must in such cases, try to eliminate most potential rivals.
With televised poker tournaments making celebrities of gamblers more and more people are trying their hand at online poker.
