No-Limit Hold’em Starting Hand Selection Concepts

Your starting hand choices have a lot to do with your poker results. Entering the pot from a firm foundation will give you the kind of armor and firepower that you need for each combat situation. Let’s discuss some of the concepts that affect whether to call, raise, or fold in various situations.

(1) What are the conditions of contest?

The amount of pressure there is there to get involved in a pot varies with the setting of the game. In a cash game, there is little reason to leap into combat. For those of us that prefer to have a deep stack and keep it replenished when we lose a big chunk, the amount of the blinds is almost insignificant compared to the pot size and possible payoffs. Although the game is more fun when you play a lot of hands, it is more profitable when on the average you start with better hands than your opponents. In tournament play, the amount of pressure to enter the pot varies with the structure. There is less pressure in the longer tournaments because you have more time between the blinds being raised to accumulate enough chips to be comfortable at the next structure level. Are there antes to supplement the blinds? An ante means more players are scrambling to take a shot at the pot, so fewer pots will be unraised.

(2) What is the character of your hand?

The most important characteristic of a starting hand is whether you are building a draw or a made hand. Of course, any starting hand can go either way. The 6 5 can flop a boat, and a pair of sevens can flop a straight draw with 8-6-5. Nevertheless, most hands will have a strong propensity to go in one direction most of the time. Two cards of the same suit or two cards touching in rank are primarily drawing hands, and pairs are primarily looking to make a made hand.

(3) What is the tempo of the game?

A key factor in deciding to play a starting hand that does not want to call a raise is how likely the pot is to get popped preflop. Hands with unsuited big cards such as A-J, K-Q and K-J are in serious danger of being dominated by a better hand (such as A-K or A-Q). There is no sense in calling preflop with a hand that cannot stand a raise if a majority of pots are being raised preflop.

(4) Who are the players?

If you are playing against people who are weak enough at no-limit to lose all their chips when they hit top pair with a good kicker, it is tempting to play small pair hoping to flop a set. In a tough game, especially when out of position, I do not feel it appropriate to play such starting hands, feeling they have negative equity in the long run.

(5) Who are you? In other words, how well do you play no-limit?

It is just common sense that the better the player, the more he will be able to get out of a marginal hand. The colloquial expression is “what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander.” Even so, it seems to me that many good poker players who play a lot of starting hands would do even better if they threw a few of the more dodgy hands away. Particularly, strong tournament players who fail to do nearly as well in cash games would do better in those cash games if they would fold some of their poorer starting hands.

The above factors are so important in determining hand playability that someone who puts out a list of starting hands that can be played at each position at the table without discussing these factors is guilty of misleading the readers by using overly sweeping generalities.

Now that we have discussed a number of the more important factors, let’s look at some specific hands that I feel are problems.

Ace-small suited is primarily a drawing hand, even though it has some high-card value. A drawing hand requires good position to be playable. It also requires seeing the flop fairly cheaply. In early position, I play this hand only in a donkey game, where if someone makes a flush along with me, they will in all likelihood stay in until they run out of chips. So basically, you need a limp-fest with weak players to enter a pot in early position (weaken the hand to K-x, you have a clear fold anywhere except on the button).

What I have said about ace-small suited also applies to suited face cards. With these hands, you cannot call a raise, and need to see the flop cheaply. So you can play them in early position only against weak players in a game where the majority of pots go unraised.

Small suited connectors are even less desirable than hands such as A-x suited or suited face cards, because they hit fewer flops and do not build the nuts whenever a flush draw is working. This hand is a fold in early or middle position. However, late position is a whole different story. In the cutoff or button positions, I am not afraid to call a raise when both I and the raiser are deep-stacked and the pot is multiway.

Small pairs are an overrated hand (middle pairs are much more valuable). You flop a set less than one time out of eight, and usually go broke if someone else flops a set when you do. Still, when there is a limp-fest going on and the opposition is weak, I would play those hand in unraised pots.

Let’s talk about calling a preflop raise. I sometimes just call with pocket aces or kings, but I pick my spots to do that. First, I would need to be facing an opponent who is likely to make a continuation bet whether he hits or not. Second, I do not want the money to be too deep. The amount of money that works best for me is when there is a bet and a raise left to wager on the flop. If the pot is $100 and my opponent wagers $100, I want to be able to call his $100 and then raise the pot size all-in, which will be $300 more after I call. In this scenario, the ideal pot size would be where the preflop amount is a quarter of my remaining stack. Naturally, I am not that precise, but I like the amount to be in the 20 to 30 percent range.

Hands I am happy to call with are the intermediate pairs and A-K. I find that A-Q, even when suited, is a treacherous hand. I hate to lay it down when a clown raises the pot, but calling a solid player is a different story. It seems that half the time they have A-K and the other half they hold K-K. Of course, this statement is exaggerated, but I seldom call anybody who seems to be just playing their cards and has been dealt a raising hand. ♠

Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered (autographed to you) from Bob by e-mail: [email protected]. Free U.S. shipping to Card Player readers. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons at a reasonable rate. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert’s Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.