Pot limit and no limit preflop basic concepts

You will see that anywhere on this site, the strategy guides for no limit and pot limit holdem are the same, this is simply because those two games are very similar. In pot limit holdem, you cannot bet more than the current amount of the pot, in no limit, you can bet as much as you want, but you will almost never bet more than the size of the pot.

Many people will tell you that you have to play tight (tight means not playing many hands, only the good ones!). This is usually true, and 3 years ago, believe me, playing tight preflop was enough to show good profit at online poker. Since it was so easy to make money, many players learned to play tight and today, online poker is much more tight than it used to be. Now, if you don’t play tight, you will most probably get killed at the tables (unless you have a very good postflop play or play at tables with 5 players or less).

As tight as there are players at the tables

What do I mean by that? I mean that if there are 10 players at the table, you have to be very tight! You will need to fold a lot! But if you are playing heads up, then you will need to play most of your hands. There are basically 2 reasons for that:

There more players at the table, the higher the chances that someone has a better hand than you. A4 will be the best hand almost every time heads up, but at a table with 10 players, most of the time, someone will have better.

The less players at the tables, the more often you will have to post a blind. If you are playing heads up and only play the best 10% of your hands, your opponent could simply take your blinds 9 times out of 10. But at a table with 10 players, you really can wait for a good starting hand because you only pay 1.5 big blind every 10 hands.

Hands where you can make the money

Many people tell that AK is not a great hand because a pair of 2 has 52% chances to win against AK. They are right that a pair of 2 has 52% chances of winning vs AK, but they are so wrong on everything else. Why? Because AK can make the money much more often than a pair of 2. Why? With 22, even if you have the best hand on the flop, unless you got your set of 2, you will not be ready to put much money on that hand, so even if you do win the hand, you will not win much (unless you really gamble, but you will not make money this way in the long run). With 22, there are only 2 cards in the deck that can help you, but with AK, you have 6 (the 3 other Aces and the 3 kings). Now, if you have AK and you hit your A or your K on the flop, you have top pair top kicker Now, you are ready to put much more money on the table, so you can make money with the hand.

The idea is to play hands that can make the money, because when you hit, you can extract money and not just check and hope your hand is good enough to win the small pot. Here are examples of hands that can make the money:

AA-KK-QQ-JJ-TT: These hands will give you an overpair pretty often, you can really extract some money with those, especially AA and KK.

AK-AQ-AJ-AT: These hands are pretty strong when they hit and will win most of the time, so you can extract some money with those.

22-33-44-…-99: These hands will flop a set 1 out of 8 times. But flopping a set is one of the best money making situation you can get (and one of the best feeling by the way). Just remember that you will have a hand to extract money only 1 out of 8 times, so don’t put half your stack on the table preflop!

67s-78s-89s-9Ts-TJs-QJs-KQs: These hands are suited connectors, they offer you the best odds to get a straight or a flush. That will not happened very often, but most of the time, the hand you will get will be strong enough to go all in. The most important thing with these hand is to play them only when you invest a small portion of your stack to see a flop. Since getting a strong hand will not happened often, you need to be pretty sure it wont cost much preflop and you need to be able to extract most of it when it happens, so having good position does help those hands a lot (the best position is the dealer button, if you play before the dealer button, the closer you are to play just before him, the better).

A2s-A3s-A4s-…-A9s: These hands have lots in common with the suited connectors, they don't give you anything strong most of the time, but you can get something really powerful once in a while. With these hands, you play mostly for the flush. When you have the flush, most of the time, it will be powerful enough to go all in (if the board doesn’t have a pair and you have your flush, you have the best possible hand!). Again, with these hands, it’s important not to invest too much preflop and good position really helps a lot.

Why not play A3o, you can extract money when you make 2 pairs, that other guy with AK or AQ will pay you well? Because you will flop 2 pairs only 1 time out of 30, if the other guy really has AK, he will most probably charge you about 4 big blinds to see a flop (do the math, you both usually have 100 big blinds each, you pay 4 big blinds and you get your 2 pairs 1 time out of 30). And it gets worse, the guy with AK still has 27% chances of winning the pot, it’s not that low! Why 27%, doesn’t that sound like a lot? Because he doesn’t need his K to get his second pair to win, any other pair on the board except 2 or 3 makes you lose. For example, if the board end up A4394, you both have 2 pairs AA-44, but he has K kicker and you have 9. And one more thing, that 1 time out of 30, you still only get 2 pairs, it's a strong hand, but not that strong!

The second big problems with low cards

Other than not getting a good hand often, there is still one more problem with low cards. It’s hard to get paid when you hit something strong other than a straight. Why? Let's look at the strong hands you can get:

2 pairs: That one will append 1 time out of 30 and most of the time, you will be the only one who hit something (hey, there are 2 low cards on the flop, your opponent only has 1 card left to get lucky), so your opponent wont call big bets with nothing. When they do have 1 pair over your 2 pairs, which will not be often, they will still win about 27% of the time.

Tripps: Even if it’s low cards, when there is a pair on the board, most players get scared and will not call big bets.

A flush: If your cards are offsuit, someone will have a bigger flush most of the time and if they don’t, they wont bet much on a board with 4 cards of the same suit. If your cards are suited, you will still have a hard time getting money with a flush. It’s just hard to extract with a flush because people get scared when there are 3 cards of the same suit on the board, it’s much easier to get money with a straight than a flush (except when there is only 1 card missing for the straight).

A full house: That one will not append often, REALLY NOT OFTEN. When it does, like when you hit tripps, there is a pair on the board, people gets scared and does not call big bets.

So on what hands do you make money?

When your opponent has a strong hand and you have an even better hand, here are the classic scenarios:

A set: Sets are the best source of money in no limit and pot limit holdem. I personally consider a set on the flop to be impossible to fold. What if the board screams FLUSH or STRAIGHT? I just don’t care, people will get aggressive with good draws. If the flop is 3 cards of the same suit, most players would even go all to way to all in with the Ace of the suit (flush draw). With a set, you have 75% odds of winning against a flush draw, even more against a straight draw. They will also often have 1 or 2 pairs, against which your odds are even better (much better). And when they do already have the straight or flush, you still have 35% chances of making your full house and win!

Top pair better kicker: Want an example? You have AK, your opponent has AJ and you hit your Ace. Do I need to say more?

Straight vs 1-2 pairs or a set: Against a set, you will still lose pretty often, but against someone who gets top pair with a good kicker, you will extract some good money most of the time.

Flush: That one is hard, people gets scared because of the possible flush. But if you play tight preflop, you will have Ace high flush more often than those who doesn’t play tight, so once in a while, you will have both have a flush and you will win.

It’s not just tight, it’s tight aggressive!

It is important to raise, it really really is. Why not only call with AA, they will not see you coming with this? 2 reasons:

It’s just 1 pair, not like you’ll like this 95% of the time. If you do not raise preflop, the pot will often only get big when you are beat.

Most of the playable hands are speculative hands, hand that does not get strong most of the time (like Axs, suited connectors and small pairs). If you do not raise preflop, they will only give you 1 big blind to see the flop and when the flop comes, they will fold if they do not beat you. But if you raise preflop, you will get 3-4-5-6 big blinds per players. If they play a speculative hand, they will fold most of the time on the flop, if they hit something, since the pot is bigger, they will stay more often with a hand not as strong as yours.

Also, when you raise, you can win the blinds right there. Winning 1.5 big blind may seem like it’s not much, but it is. Players that have tracking software who remembers all their hands knows that most hands does not win 1.5 big blind on average.

Basically, now that you can understand them, here are the important concepts preflop:

The more players at the table, the tighter you need to be.
The better your position, the more hands you can play.
The more a hand needs to get lucky to be strong (like small pairs, Axs and suited connectors), the more the preflop bet need to be small compared to the stacks.
The more a hand needs to get lucky to be strong, the more it needs to be played only in good position.
It’s important to raise preflop with your good hands.

In fact, most professional players will enter much more pots with a raise than with a call.