Starting Hands
The most fundamental advice you can get for playing poker is to choose carefully your starting hands. It's true that even the weakest hand can become a monster (72 offsuitCards of differing suit can flop 777 or 772), but the truth is they're very unlikely to do so. So reducing the range of cards you play is the first step you must make to improving your game.Here we present a 'starting hands chart'. Some experienced players might dismiss such a thing as useless since every situation is different, and your choice of opening a particular hand will depend on many things such as your opponents and stakes etc. However when you're starting out it's not easy to recognise the right situation from the wrong, so a starting hand chart is extremely useful in giving you a good starting reference point.
The hands that you will play depend strongly on positionYour seat at the table in relation to the order of play. Being able to act after other players is a big advantage - read the section on position first to get a proper understanding of why. Since it's harder to win from early position it makes sense to open with a very tight range, while moving to late position we can widen that range with the widest range being on the button.
A quick explanation of the notation that's commonly used; A postfix of 's' means suited cards. and '+' means 'and greater'. The cards given will imply the 'connectedness', for example 65 is connected, 75 is a one-gapper, 85 is two gapper etc.
so, for example;
44+ means any pair from a pair of fours upwards.
JT+ means connected cards from JT upwards.
JTs+ means suited connectors from JT upwards.
A6+ means any A with the second card being 6 or greater (and A6s+ means the cards are suited too).
CO22+A5s+, A9o+ 65s+, JTo+ T8s+, QTo+ KTo, K9s Q9s+ |
BTN22+A2s+, A8o+ K8s+, K9o+ 54s+, 98o+ 64s+, J9o+ 96s+, Q9o+ T6s+ |
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The blinds88+.AJs (don't play AJo) AQ and AK either suited or offsuit. Call with medium pocket pairs, 3bet AK, KK/AA, call (maybe 3bet) AJs, AQ, fold with everything else. Completing the small blind is generally a bad move. | |
MP22+A9s+, ATo+ 98s+ KQo+, KJo+, KTs |
UTG22+ATs+ AQo+ 98s+, KQ+ KJs+ | |
The chart above represents your opening range - if someone opens before you then you should only call with a much tighter range, for instance hands you'd use from the blinds or UTG (if it was the UTG that opened and they're a player who seems to understand position, then the best option is to use the blinds range).
To begin with the chart will seem cumbersome when you have to refer to it for every hand. It'll also be tempting to open with more hands - for instance why not open AJo from UTG? By maintaining a good discipline you will stay out of difficult decisions, and as your experience grows you'll know what hands to add to your opening ranges when the situation allows you.