Pre Flop Poker Strategy

Learning Pre-flop poker strategy is extremely important to making a lot of money, and saving a ton as well. Our Pre-flop strategy is broken down in early, middle, and late position. Make sure you dissect your pre-flop poker strategy at all times. It can get you in a lot of trouble if not perfected.

Early Position
Suppose you are in an early position and you call the blind during pre-flop. By being one of the first to act, you do not know if one or more of the players after you will call, raise or fold. It is highly recommended not to play cards from an early position that are too weak to justify calling a raise. You need a superior starting hand to make it worth playing. These premium hands includes:

Also, with players in middle and late positions acting behind you, do not be afraid of giving away too much information. There are just too many players to fool; it is not worthwhile to even make the effort. If you have a premium hand, raise with it. You don't want to give players in late position the opportunity to see the flop with drawing hands.

Middle Position
In the pre-Flop round, middle position players can open raise with a few more hands than early position players can, since there is a smaller chance that a player in a later position will have a better hand.

In an un-raised pot, you can play all premium and average hands when the game is typical or tough. You will find it difficult to "steal the blinds" in the middle position, since an opponent in a later position might come in with a raise. After the Flop, the relative position of the middle position player is the most prone to change depending on what other position stays in the game. A player's position may not be static throughout a hand, and it is the middle position player's place that is the most prone to change after the Flop.

One strategy that begins to come into play in the middle positions is that a player should almost always raise rather than call when:

1. No one has yet entered the pot.
2. You have a playable hand.
3. You think there is a reasonable chance that all players behind you will fold.

However, if criteria one or three is not met, you should usually just call, except with your best hands, and actually fold some of the weaker hands that you would have otherwise raised with.

Always remember, if you are not sure as to the correct course of action, it is probably best to throw the hand away.

Late Position
Being the last to act, gives you a gold mine of information; you get to observe when your opponents check or bet. This gives you a great deal of information about their hands, and thus, enables you to make better decisions than you can make in the earlier positions. You will have excellent position on all betting rounds. For example, hands that you would never play in an early position become quite playable in a late position because it is not necessary to worry about another player having a hand that dominates yours. Average hands like KQ, and KJ not only become playable, they are actually raising hands.

When the pot is short-handed, you should play more aggressively, unless the blinds and the remaining players are loose. Unless you hold a hand that plays well in multi-way pots, you should be less aggressive. When you are in the late position playing against tight opponents, you should take chances to steal the blinds. If there is no caller, most hands ranging from weak to premium are worth a raise. Nevertheless, if there are already callers, you should only raise with premium and some of the average hands.

Players in late positions have the best opportunity of taking free cards. Being the last ones to act, they can check when there are no callers and thus, observe opponents for another round before their next act.