Mistake #2: Playing Too Many Starting Hands
Mistake #1
Mistake #3
This is rather straight-forward. Any player who has read at least one poker
book knows that starting hand strategy is the building block to an overall
profitable strategy. Yet very few players demonstrate the knowledge and/or
patience to play good starting hands. Why is starting hand strategy so critical
to Texas Hold’em? Playing less hands than your opponents gives you the advantage
in the long run. Think about this, if your opponents play 40% of their hands and
you are only playing 20%, you will have the advantage in the majority of the
hands that you play. You’ll win a lot more pots with the best kicker. When you
hit pairs, they will be less vulnerable to overcards. Your straights will beat
lower straights. Your flushes will outkick your opponents’ flushes…and so forth.
By playing fewer hands you will continue to put yourself in the best position to
win the hand. Of course, it is possible to play too tight. This is why you have
to post blinds in poker; otherwise, you could just wait for AA every time. Yet I
have rarely run into a player that plays too tight.
So how many hands should you play? This is all relative and depends on the
criteria you should evaluate when evaluating starting hand strategy. Each game
is different which affects how many hands may be profitable. One of the main
criteria in determining starting hand strategy is how loose or tight the overall
game is. You can play more hands from late position with more callers in a hand.
For example, 55 is generally not a profitable hand against one caller; however,
this hand can be quite profitable if six players have limped into the pot. The
more players that are seeing the flop the better your implied odds. Loose games
allow you to play slightly more hands. Another good example, yet less subtle is
when you are in early position. QJs is a borderline hand when played from early
position. However, whenever a player limps in before me I will be more likely to
play the hand. I am getting better implied odds for my draws. In addition, once
two players have limped into the pot, your opponents are less likely to raise
behind you without the very best premium hands. So looser games allow you to
play a few more hands but don’t take this too far. Please don’t let this be the
recipe for playing lots of starting hands simply because you play in a loose
game. Loose games allow you to play a few more starting hands.
Another criteria in starting hand strategy is whether or not the game is
aggressive or passive. Many hands become unplayable whenever the pot is raised.
This is a simple concept but many players fail to understand this very important
point. A raise indicates that your opponent has a strong hand and also lowers
your pot odds. Be very selective in the hands you play once the pot has been
raised. Let’s look at the great paradox in poker. The better you are the more
hands you can play, yet exactly the opposite is true in actual play. The number
of hands you play should be dependent on how good a poker player you are.
sophisticated players are able to overcome the weakness of some starting hands by
using their excellent post-flop skills to outplay their opponents. They make
better decisions on the flop, turn, and river to minimize losses with weak hands
and maximize their wins. This allows them to be able to play more hands
profitably than the beginning player. Most beginning to intermediary players
should play a very tight game until you gain more experience. So think about
this when you see a good player playing a questionable hand…maybe he can mix up
his game now and then with some borderline hands but that does not mean it is a
profitable play for the average player. Many players make the mistake of seeing
some weak hands win a lot so they get tempted into playing them also.
I keep track of all my hand histories using Poker Stat and Poker Tracker
software. These two products provide you with a wealth of information, including
how often you see the flop. One interesting analysis I did was to look at the
top 20 winning players that I had played at least 2000 hands against. I then did
a benchmarking study for different criteria. In this particular analysis, I
found the range of hands played by the winning players was between 18-28% with
most players falling in the 20-22% range.
This analysis was done for a relatively tight game so you ought to see slightly
higher percentages in looser games…but this should give you a good idea. In
general, most players should be playing between 15%-25% of your hands. The less
experienced you are the further down in that range you should be playing. Yes,
sophisticated players can play a few more than that range indicates, but it is better
for beginning to intermediary players to avoid these borderline hands that can
get you into trouble.
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