Opening up Your Starting Poker Hand Range
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
By playing more hands pre-flop, you can effectively widen your range, and make it more difficult for other pokern players to put you on a specific hand. As a beginning player, once you learn how play premium starting hands, and learn the basics of position and playing tight aggressive poker, you can start mixing in weaker starting hands and put yourself in the position to win big pots when the flop hits you, or give you future expected value as players will have a harder time putting you on a hand after you show down a strange starting hand.
Once you learn how to play the top ten starting hands, you can begin to mix in middle to small pocket pairs, suited connecting cards, and occasionally rags. Do this from position until you learn more advanced strategy. Playing these hands from position will allow you to continuation bet your pre-flop raise, and will allow you more possibilities to win the pot after the flop with incomplete information.
If you have the image of a very tight poker player, take that information with you as you go to the flop, and think about how your opponent uses that information against you, when you hold a hand like 6 7 suited. If the flop comes all face cards and you bet out, your opponent is only calling you with a hand that beats you, as he knows how strong you likely are. Conversely, if you flop a straight with 6 7, and bet out, he probably won’t believe you, and will pay you off or may even re-raise you. These are the benefits of playing hands that fall out of the top ten starting hands, especially as a player with a tight image.
Being creative with you starting hand holdings will also allow you to learn different nuances of the game in real time. Anyone can read a book and absorb information, but learning while doing is one best ways to learn. Even if you lose a pot trying something different, that creativity and exploration will pay dividends and help your game exponentially in the long run.