Preflop Hand Guide for Texas Hold'em

One of the most important poker skills is proper preflop play. Since what you do before the flop all but controls what you do after the flop, you need to make smart decisions about how you play your starting hands. This guide will give you an understanding of the best starting hands, and how you should choose the hands you play.

Position

The first factor to consider is your position. The closer you are to the dealer, the looser you can play preflop. For example, if you're in dealer position it would be fine to play a hand like A9 suited, but if you have the same A9 suited under the gun it's an easy fold.

The blinds are a little trickier to play. Although you act last preflop, you're going to have to act first post flop. Because of this, you should still play fairly tight in the small and big blind. In the small blind you can call with some mediocre hands, because you are already half way invested. However, if there is a raise in front of you and you are in the blinds, you need a very strong hand to call or reraise.

Previous Action

Another thing to consider is what the players in front of you have done. If there have been many callers, then it is acceptable to limp in with hands like suited connectors or small pocket pairs. However, if there is only one player in, and that player made a raise, then you should be folding suited connectors and small pocket pairs.

Also, when there is a lot of action in front of you, you may have to reconsider playing some solid hands. For example, if there has been a raise, a call, and a re-raise in front of you, and you have AJ, you should be folding. Even though AJ is a solid hand preflop, with that kind of action in front of you you are sure to be beat.

What Hand You Hold

Obviously one very important factor to how you play preflop is what hand you hold. To help you out we've organized all of the hands into four different groups: Big pairs, small pairs, suited connectors, and face cards.

When you have a big pair (AA-TT) you need to raise and reraise the pot. Since your pair is likely the best hand at the moment, you want to force out players who may have connectors or an over card, because they could outdraw you. Also, if you can limit the hand to heads up or at most three-way, you'll greatly minimize your chances of taking a bad beat.

Small pairs (99-22) should be played only when you have the correct pot odds. Since there is almost always going to be over cards on the board, you want to either hit or set or fold on the flop. To make this profitable, there need to be many players in the pot, and it shouldn't be raised. The reason for this is it makes it cheap for you to see a flop, and if you hit your set there will be many players in the hand to pay you off.

Suited connectors should be played the same as small pairs. Since you're only going to make a big hand once in a long while, you need to have many people in the pot without a raise for it to be profitable for you to play.

Face cards include hands like AK or QJ. These are unmade hands, but can still deserve a raise because you are likely ahead preflop. If there are raises in front of you, you should only be playing AK or AQ, the other face card hands should be thrown away.

By studying this guide you will have a great understanding of how to play preflop. Get out to the tables, and good luck!