Texas hold 'em is a very complex game. There is no absolute correct way to play before the flop. This page is designed to give beginner players a basic idea of how to play various Texas hold 'em hands before seeing the flop. In Texas hold 'em each player is dealt two hole cards. For the two starting cards there are 2704 combinations of rank and suit. However before the flop the suits don't matter except whether or not the two cards are of the same suit. If you only make a distiction between suited and unsuited cards, there are only 169 distinct starting hands. One way to express the 169 different starting hands in Texas Hold'em is by using a table. In the table below each of the 169 starting hands are equivalent to a single cell in the 13x13 table. The unsuited hands are the hands on the bottom left half. The suited hands are on the upper right half. Each hand can then be assigned a group. Each grouping is a set of starting hands that are played similarly. David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, co-authors of Hold’em Poker and Advanced Holdem Poker, were the first to apply rankings to the starting 2-card hands, and place them in groupings with advice on how to play those groups. In this example there are 10 groupings.
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No Limit Tournament Strategy
| A | K | Q | J | T | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| K | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 7 | ||||||
| Q | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 8 | ||||||||
| J | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||
| T | 4 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 6 | |||||||
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 6 | |||||||||
| 8 | 8 | 4 | 6 | ||||||||||
| 7 | 4 | 6 | |||||||||||
| 6 | 5 | 8 | |||||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||||||
| 4 | 5 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | 5 | ||||||||||||
| 2 | 5 |
- Note: Unsuited on the bottom left, suited on the top right.
Group One
Premium hands that should be raised or re-raised in any position. Raise or call all-in if need be.
Group Two
Raise the blinds and one or two limpers, otherwise call if you are short stacked, or the amount to call does not commit your chip stack.
Group Three
Raise the blinds in late position, limp in early position. Call if short stacked, or if the amount is small.
Group Four
Raise the blinds only in late position, limp only in mid to late position, and call if short stacked.
Group Five
Raise if heads-up, or raise the blinds short handed. Limp in mid to late position. Raise or call if short stacked.
Group Six
Raise the blinds heads-up, or short stacked. Call in the small blind, or limp in late position. Raise or call if short stacked.
Group Seven
Limp in late position, raise the blinds heads-up. Raise or call if short stacked.
Group Eight
Heads-up only. Raise if short-stacked, raise the blinds, or call small amounts if stacks are large.
Bluffs
Raise if heads-up, or raise the blinds, but fold if re-raised.
No Group
Check or fold.
See also
References
- . ISBN 1880685221.
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