Preflop is where every hand begins so it's important you get it right. The cards you play and the way you play those cards preflop affects the way the rest of the hand goes down. If you make mistakes before the flop, the rest of the hand will reflect those mistakes. If you play a strong preflop game, the rest of the hand becomes easier to play.
Starting Hands
Choosing the correct starting hands is where a solid strategy begins. The biggest mistake new players make is playing too many starting hands. You must be very tight in picking your starting hands. A good poker player folds at least 75% of his starting hands.
There is a preflop starting hand chart at the end of this book that goes into great detail about which hands you should play preflop. The point of this chapter isn't to list every single hand; it's to explain the purpose behind playing a tight preflop game and how it helps you win money.
It may not sound exciting having to play a game of poker where you fold all the time, but that's how you win at poker. If you want to play poker for fun and play every starting hand you get, that's totally fine but you're not going to win any meaningful money that way. I find it much more exciting to win lots of money than to play every starting hand.
You want to limit yourself to playing only the strongest starting hands because those are the ones that win the most pots. Hands like AA, AK and AQ don't win every pot but they do win more pots than other starting hands. If you consistently put money in with strong hands while your opponents put money in with weak hands, you will gain in the long run.
If you're playing poker at a 6-handed table, the random dealing of cards dictates that each player should win, on average, 1 pot out of 6. Now hands like AA and AK won't win every pot but they will win about 4 or 5 pots out of 6. Of course you can't pick which hands you are dealt but you can pick which hands you put money in with. If you stick to the hands that win more than their fair share of pots, you will profit over the long run.
It's a simple concept but it takes discipline to apply it at the poker tables. It's easy to get bored during a dry stretch of cards and start playing non-premium hands but you have to avoid that temptation. Everyone hits dry runs of cards; the difference between the winners and losers is how they deal with those dry runs.
Position
Position is one of the most important concepts in poker. Being out of position is a huge disadvantage because it means you have to act first - before you get to see what your opponents do. What's even worse is your opponents get to see your actions before they must make theirs.
Being out of position is a difficult place to be in, so you want to have the strongest cards possible before playing a hand from out of position. That's why you should play extra tight from early position. In early position you should stick to the following hands:
22-AA
AK, AQ
AJs, KQs
Now with these hands, if you're the first person in the pot, you should come in with a raise. If several people have already limped in to the pot, you can limp in behind them with 22-99, AJs and KQs but you should put in a raise with TT-AA, AK and AQ.
With hands like AA-TT, AK and AQ, your best bet is to build a big pot preflop by raising. AA and KK are the absolute best hands so you should try to get these as close to all-in as you can without making your opponents fold. What you don't want to do is play those hands passively and let a bunch of people see the flop for free. You need to make your opponents pay to suck out on you. By doing so, you are trapping more money in the pot with a hand that will win more than its fair share of pots.
If nobody has entered the pot yet, middle position should be played the same as early position. There are still several people to act behind you so you are at the same positional disadvantage. If a couple people have already limped in, you can limp in behind them with some of the more speculative hands like small pocket pairs or suited connectors.
In late position you can really open up your game. You'll be the one with good position so you can take advantage of it. In late position you can raise with all kinds of hands if nobody has entered the pot yet. If people have entered the pot, you can play more hands too since you won't have to worry about the pot being raised after you limp in.
If it's been folded around to you in late position, you can raise with the same hands as in early position plus the following hands:
Suited connectors from 67s to KJs
Suited aces from A7s +
By raising these hands in late position, you're putting the blinds in a tough spot. They know there's a chance you're raising with garbage but they'll have to play the entire hand from out of position. If they fold, you win the blinds. If they call, they have to play the entire hand with poor position. It's a very strong place for you to be in if the blinds don't have premium hands.
Raising Preflop
The last part of a good preflop game is playing with aggression. The purpose of placing preflop raises is to get money in the pot when you have strong hands. Your raise will also help limit the field, which will make it easier for you to take the pots down after the flop - either by betting or by having the best hand.
A good rule of thumb for the sizing of your preflop raises is the "4BB + 1BB per limper" rule. This mean your preflop raises should be the size of 4 big blinds plus 1 big blind per person who has already limped in to the pot. If you're playing $0.50/$1.00 no limit and one person has limped in already, your preflop raise should be $5.00 (4 big blinds plus 1 for the limper).
If you always raise using this rule, it will be impossible to tell what you have based on your bet sizes. Since you use this rule for all of your hands, your opponents will never know if you have a really strong hand or you are raising with junk. It's an easy way to keep your game unpredictable.
Very rarely is it a good idea to limp in with hands preflop. If a hand isn't strong enough to raise, it isn't strong enough to be played. The only time hands should be limped in is if it's a medium-strength hand but enough people have limped in to the pot in front of you that you're getting the odds to play it.
If several people have limped in and you have a strong hand, go ahead and raise it up. By raising here, one of two things will happen. You'll either thin the field so that it's easier for you to win the pot after the flop or everyone will call and you'll build a bigger pot with your strong hand.
If everyone calls your raise, the odds are you won't win the showdown. That's OK though because you'll still win more than that 1 in 6 pots that I was talking about earlier. Let's use a hypothetical example to explain this point:
Say you are dealt KK preflop, you raise it up and 4 people call your raise. Let's just say that whatever combination of cards your opponents call with, it ends up that your KK will win the showdown 40% of the time and the other four people will each win 15% of the time.
In this example, you have the highest chance out of anyone to win the pot, but there's still a 60% chance that you'll lose the hand. This sounds bad until you think about how much money you're putting in the pot. Everyone has put in the exact same amount of money into the pot up to this point. They all called your preflop raise so right now all bets are even. With five people in the pot that means each of you has supplied 20% of the money.
Now you'll see that you're getting a great deal on your money here. You've only supplied 20% of the money in the pot but you have a 40% chance to win the hand. Your opponents each supplied 20% of the money in the pot but they only have a 15% chance to win the pot.
If you got into this situation over and over again, you would make tons of money over the long run. Even though your odds of winning are only 40%, the large payoffs more than make up for the times you lose the pot.
If you raise it up preflop and only one person calls the pot won't be as big but that's OK too because you'll win the pot a much higher percentage of the time against a single opponent.
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