Texas Hold'em Poker Pre-Flop Betting Strategy

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Monday, 13 October 2008

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By:Online Poker Players Guide

It is important to understand that how you play your hand pre-flop will greatly effect the outcome of the hand in many ways not the least of which weather or not you win. Now because certain starting hands have advantages over others, and certain situations change the normal way things would be played we will assume for the purposes of simplicity that for all the examples we will give in this article that no outside factors would change the normal play. Also the examples for the most part will be in a more general sense and not so specific to the situation.

Now we will be discussing pre-flop betting strategies of Texas Hold'em. These concepts can be applied in no-limit texas hold'em and limit hold'em games as well. The main difference will be the amount you raise or call will be determined by the level of the blinds in limit hold'em; where as, in no-limit games you will decide the amount yourself.

The first thing we must decide is weather or not we will play the hand or fold it. This is not a decision to be made lightly. Too often I see players just call nearly any hand to see the flop and then make a decision as to weather or not to play the hand. This may seem like a good way to capitalize on hands that you may feel opponents wouldn't assume would be played and so give you an advantage when the flop favors you. This is true in theory, but only if these lesser hands are played sparingly. The problem with this method is that you end up committing yourself to mediocre hands after making a pair or some draw on the flop. The other problem is even if you fold after the flop you still have lost some of your chips. Even if it is a small amount you must look at it like this. Every chip is leverage, and every chip you lose not only diminishes your power at the table, but at the same increases your opponents power.

After deciding to play the hand you get into the gray area of how much should I raise to get the desired effect. After all if you raise too much everyone will just fold and you will only collect the blinds, and if you raise to little it will not encourage people to fold the weaker hands that we want them to. A good way to gauge how much you should raise pre-flop is in proportion to the big blind. A good raise should be about 3 or 4 times the amount of the big blind.

First it protects your hand. How does it do this? Well what a pre-flop raise will do is get people to fold hands that they may have played where it not for the raise. These hands could after the flop be strong and so the less competition the better. This increases your chances of winning on the simple basis that the more people in the hand for the flop the stronger the winning hand will be.

Also we can assume a few things about the hands that will call a pre-flop raise. This helps us identify our opponents hand strength after the flop, and as the hand progresses. The hands that would call a pre-flop raise would most likely be the more advantaged hands such as pocket pairs, suited connectors, and face cards, the most likely of these being a hand containing an ace.

In addition raising pre-flop establishes a course of action that will make future betting almost expected. This way while you are trying to extract more money it is perceived as the continuation of your betting that you had established pre-flop.

Obviously you will have to use your own judgement on each particular situation, but using and mastering these methods will help you to gain information about opponents hand strengths, extract money on your strong hands, and help establish your table image as that of a player who is aggressive and decisive. This image will keep your opponents guessing and many times they will fold away their hands and let you take down the pot rather than challenge you. This is because they know from your past actions you will continue through your betting to apply pressure and so win or lose they will have to take a great risk if they choose to call you.

These are pre-flop strategies and so they do not cover strategies after the flop. I would add this though. If you raise pre-flop as described above and your hand isn't improved by the flop all is not necessarily lost. By making a bet after the flop of equal or greater size to your pre-flop bet your opponent will be very likely to fold if their hand was not improved by the flop. With an understanding of probabilities you will know that it is more likely that his hand was not improved, and so more often than not he will fold and you will take down the pot.

These strategies are not meant to be used on every hand that you decide to play. Also we are not advocating raising pre-flop on every hand you choose to play. These strategies should be reserved only for the very strong starting hands.

For a more in depth examination of hold'em strategies, statistics, tips and much more visit the link below.

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