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In short, your decisions in the pre-flop betting round should be based on three key factors:
Poker Hand Calculator Pre Flop
- Your hand strength
- Your position at the table
- Your opponents’ action in front of you
We now look more deeply at how to apply these basics in the specific environment of the cash-game tables.
- The @PokerSimple1 hosts identify a few times when you should probably let go of J-J before the flop. Upon what parameters should you consider folding pocket jacks preflop? @PokerSimple1 investigates.
- If you do see a flop, you will also need to know what the odds are of either you or your opponent improving a hand. In poker terminology, an “out” is any card that will improve a player’s hand after the flop. One common occurrence is when a player holds two suited cards and two cards of the same suit appear on the flop.
Hand selection
As in all games of Texas Hold’em, be it tournament play or a cash game, you will need to categorise your starting hand. (Refresh your memory of what we mean by “monsters”, “very strong hands”, “speculative hands” and “trash” in the Poker Basics lesson.)
By and large, it is correct to raise with monsters and very strong hands; it is better to be more circumspect with speculative hands; and trash should be thrown away. As you get more experienced you will add other factors, but the core decision is based primarily on that list.
However in a cash game, you will have a bigger stack compared with the big blind, so you can tend to play more speculative hands. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly we are risking a much smaller proportion of our stack to enter a pot pre-flop. Secondly, if we hit, we will win a far bigger pot.
![Poker Hands Before Flop Poker Hands Before Flop](/uploads/1/3/7/1/137160974/467976450.jpg)
Therefore the risk/reward calculation changes with 100 BB stacks in a cash game. In some instances we should be happy to call pre-flop with a hand that we might ordinarily throw away. (The notion of “pot odds” is discussed in more depth later.) You can afford to call and miss with speculative hands like smaller pocket pairs and suited connectors against raises, knowing that you will fold if you miss.
The larger stack sizes also free you up to play slightly unorthodox poker at times. You might want to call with a very strong hand instead of re-raising. Or you might want to call a re-raise with a weaker speculative hand.
Your decision will need to take into account the effective stack size, as discussed in the last lesson.
For example: You are on the button with 3♣3♠ and a very tight player raises from early position. It is very likely that he holds a big pocket pair, so you will need to hit a set to win.
If your assumption is correct and the tight player has a big pair like A♥A♦ or K♠K♣ it will be tough for him to get away from his hand on a flop like 3♦Q♦10♠. You are very likely to be able to get the maximum amount of chips in the pot.
Therefore if the effective stack is 100 BB in this situation, you can certainly call the raise and hope to hit your set. The times you hit and win a big pot will make up for the times you miss and lose.
But if the effective stack is only 20 BB, you cannot win enough. Your relatively small profit will not make up for the times you miss. You should fold 3♣3♠ if you or your opponent is short-stacked.
In later stages of tournaments, play like this this simply doesn’t work. You usually play with a shallow stack, where fancy moves can cost you your tournament life. That is not true in a cash game, where the small investment pre-flop can grow into a big one if you hit the right flop.
But always keep in mind that stack size is not the only factor in the decision whether you want to play a hand or not – always consider position, opponents and your table image.
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If you are a newbie to the game of Texas Holdem, you might be asking yourself why you should raise before the flop? It’s an important question to ask yourself, since there is significance to betting and raising in poker, which will inevitable have an impact on your win rate.
By knowing when to raise before seeing the flop, and knowing what you are trying to accomplish, it will be much easier to determine when you should be raising. So these are some of the main arguments in favor of raising pre flop.
Making a Raise for value
First and foremost, you should want to raise before the flop to get more value with your premium hands. This is a fundamental poker concept that should explain itself. If you think you have the best hand before the flop you want to try and build a bigger pot before you even see the flop, turn, and river.
Let’s say you hold a hand like TT+, AQ+. These are premium hands that you can be dealt pre flop and it’s extremely likely you have the best hand before the community cards have been dealt. So your goal is to raise before the flop to build a bigger pot so that you don’t give speculative hands a chance to just call and suck out on you.
Even when you are dealt AA and the best hand pre flop, you are the 80% favorite versus any other hands in holdem. Statistically, however, the value of the hand goes down drastically when there is more then one other caller seeing the flop. By raising with your big hands, it shows you have a strong hand, so fewer players are willing to call, giving yourself the best possible chance to win the hand against a weaker holding.
Raising to isolate weaker players
This is known as the isolation raise in no limit texas holdem. Generally hands that you would be raising from that position at the table are good enough to try and isolate with. If you have spotted a weaker player(s) at the table, then it will be profitable to isolate with a wider range against them, especially if they have a tendency to check/fold the flop a lot.
Usually the best time to raise to isolate an opponent is when a weaker player enters the pot by limping in. By raising a player who has already limped into the pot, you give yourself the opportunity to play against them in a heads-up pot. Raising for isolation can be hugely profitable, because weaker players tend to limp/call with too many hands, so when you have a made hand, you can just value bet them and win their stack.
Weaker players also tend to play in a very straightforward manner on the flop and on later streets. If they miss the flop, they will fold, or call when they catch a piece of the board. Because they are limp calling with such a wide range, they will be check folding the flop a good percentage of the time, so even when you miss the flop, a continuation bet will take down the pot most of the time. You have the advantage of continuation betting as a bluff because of your aggressive pre flop strategy.
Raising with the goal of stealing the blinds
Top Poker Hands Before Flop
Although the general pre flop strategy is to raise for value and isolate weaker players with your premium hands, another tactic worth exploring is the concept of stealing the blinds. Even though the opportunity doesn’t always present itself in loose/passive full ring poker games, sometimes the action will fold around to you in late position.
If you were in the cutoff or in the button and this happens, you never want to just call to see the flop, you should be looking to steal the blinds. Even if you do happen to get called, you get to act last post flop, giving you an inherent advantage over the other players. However, when playing against tighter players in the blinds, the raise in late position will take down the pot a lot of the time. Although it’s preferable to steal the blinds on the button, if the player on the button is passive, then it becomes more appealing to blind steal in the cutoff.
Raising with the goal of deception
This play is another strategy that can be incorporated into your poker game when playing against tougher opponents, although it’s not really required when playing against weaker players who will pay you off regardless. In tougher games, raising weaker hands such as T9s in early position to create an element of deception becomes more appealing because thinking players will be assigning you hand ranges of what hands they expect you to realistically raise from that position.
If you are playing hands they wouldn’t expect you to be playing, then they can’t play the hand optimally against you, so when the other player calls and makes a big hand on the flop, you will likely win all your opposition's chips when they have a decent hand, since they will not be putting you on that hand.
In summary, it becomes easier to know when to raise before the flop, when you have a purpose of what you’re hoping to achieve.