Playing Pre–flop is all about Position, Position and more Position!

Playing with Position in mind.

One of the key concepts to poker is to understand that each hand that you are dealt, especially in Texas Hold ’Em, has an intrinsic monetary value to it. This is essentially the amount of money that you can expect to make with this hand averaged out over time, every time you decide to play it at least to the flop.

For the stronger hands such as TT, JJ, AQ or AJs or better, it’s a reasonably high figure (the actual amount of this value really depends on other factors as well, such as how good you and your opponents play your respective hands). Other hands, are worth less, hands such as QT, KTs, 65s, etc, are only barely profitable and even then they tend to only be profitable somewhat for the better players out there. It goes without saying that worse hands will have a negative monetary value associated to them, most notably hands such as 72o.

Texas Hold’em, beyond the most basic hobby and fun level, is very much a game of skill and technical understanding where knowing the importance of position is paramount. The better the position that you have compared to your opponents, both considering the pre flop and post flop scenarios, the easier it will be for you to play your hand and thus maximise your winnings and minimise your losses. Simply put, your position has a direct impact on the profitability of your hand. Obviously for great hands like pocket aces, Kings or AKs, the value of the hand far exceeds the drawback bad position it may be in. But these hands are few and infrequently dealt. Therefore the essential ingredient to playing pre–flop is in knowing which position those somewhat mediocre hands can become profitable.

So the best pre–flop strategy is one that makes you play very tight in early position, and gradually becomes looser until you get to the button. Being on the button, and on the cutoff to a lesser extent, is such an advantage that it makes playing even sub par hands profitable. Many mid and high stakes winners will open–raise from the cutoff and button with more than 50% of hands. A normal opening range would be (+ means “and all better hands”)

UTG: AJs+, AQo+, 66+

UTG+;1: ATs+, ATo+, KQo+, QJs+, 22+

Cutoff: A2s+, A9o+, T9o, 54s+, 22+

Button: A2s+, A2o+, 65o+, 34s+, 22+

So now we have an idea of roughly what hands to play. What should we do with those hands? Well assuming no–one else is in the pot yet, we should raise with them. 6 handed play is all about winning as many blinds as possible. Its who wins the majority of the small and medium pots that wins big in the end. When you raise pre–flop you give yourself the best chance to win the pot. Either you win it pre–flop (if no–one calls), or you win it on the flop with a continuation bet. (And sometimes you will even have the best hand!)

So if it’s folded to you, you have two choices. Raise or fold. However should someone (or some few) have limped before you, you now have a third choice, calling. This is a much more difficult decision and will be dealt with in a later article. The most important factors to pay attention to are: position, the players’ likely hands and their skill level, your image, and your own hand of course. For example, if you know someone is only raising premium pairs from UTG, then you can fold trouble hands like AQo and “set mine” with all low pairs

Remember, whilst thinking about a pre–flop strategy, that it pays to be unpredictable. For the majority of the time you should stick to the recommended starting hands I have outlined above, however, if you play every hand by those rules you will make your opponent’s life easier as they will be able to correctly gauge the strength of your hand from your position. Don’t forget your opponents will only see a showdown from you in a very small number of hands, and will make assumptions based upon that showdown. So doing things like raising 78o utg from time to time can be valuable, as this will lead them to make unrealistic assumptions about your range.

Playing from the blinds brings up its own set of problems. Now you know you are almost certainly going to be out of position for the hand. If it’s limped to you, you should seriously consider folding most hands from the small blind. The positional disadvantage is so great that it makes up for the attractive pot odds. Even the most successful cash game players struggle to break even from the small blind and the multiple of bets saved by not calling can be significant at the end of a session. When on the big blind you will often get to see the flop for free. This isn’t as great as it seems and you should often consider raising the unraised pot.

Deciding which hands to raise with from the blinds is a difficult conundrum. On one hand it can be very hard to play hands out of position, so it makes sense to keep the pot small. On the other hand a pre–flop raise will make it much more likely that strong starting hands like TT, JJ or AQ will win after the flop. By bringing down the number of opponents (not all of them will call your raise) you reduce the chance that your hand will be outdrawn and can proceed to fire a big flop bet with less risk. The only solution is to experiment and come up with a range and style that suits you.

One move that all players should make, however, is very occasionally making a largish raise from the blinds with absolute rags. If everyone has limped it means it’s unlikely anyone has a good hand. This also has the benefit of confusing your opponents and weakening their implied odds when you do have a real hand in this position. It’s better to raise 52o here than A2o, as the chance of making a good but second best hand is lessened; and its very unlikely you will get to a showdown unimproved, so the ace high has very little value.

What to do when someone raises and you have a good hand in the blinds is a much more complicated subject, as there are so many scenarios and variables to consider. We will discuss these in future articles on this site. Meanwhile, good luck at the tables!

Notes / Glossary of Terms Used:

T (e.g. KT) = ten

o (e.g. QJo)= off suit cards

s (e.g. 65s) = suited cards

the cutoff = the position to the right of the button (1 before the button)

“set mining” = playing small pairs, knowing you are behind, hoping to hit a set, usually on the flop (three of a kind). The plan is to throw the hand away if you miss the flop because the risks usually don’t justify the rewards after seeing the flop.

limp in = entering a pot without raising (just calling the blinds).

“open–limp” = being the first person to enter the pot first with a call rather than a raise.

“open–raise” = being the first person to bet in a given poker hand and doing so by raising.