How to Play Pre-Flop and The Flop

This article will discuss the betting strategy for how to play pre-flop and the flop in no limit Texas hold’em.

Pre-Flop

One of the biggest leaks new players will make is they will play far too many hands. Their are trying to win every pot with less then premium hands, and fail to understand that winning poker is not about winning the most hands, but winning the most money! If you are a beginning player, one of the biggest improvements you can make to your game is to play fewer hands. Playing tight pre-flop has a number of advantages.

Firstly, by reducing your starting hand requirements, this will mean you are only playing premium hands, so when you hit top pair on the flop or you have an overpair, you more then likely have the best hand. By playing hands like AK/KQ instead of junk like K3 and A7, when you flop top pair, you will find yourself in fewer spots where you are unsure if you have the best of it. On the other hand, if you are playing mediocre hands, you could be making a costly mistake if you overplay your top pair hands and you are out kickered.

In addition to experiencing fewer awkward spots, having a tight preflop raising and calling range will enable you to win pots when you miss, which you wouldn’t have been able to do if you had a loose table image. To everyone else at the table, if you have a tight table image, they are more likely to give you credit for a hand, so your bluffs will work more often.

In an nutshell, avoid playing easily dominated hands preflop like KJ or Q9, etc. You really need to be patient in poker and wait for a good hand. If you have a good starting hand, raise instead of limping in, to narrow down the field. If there has been already been a raise, only flat call if your hand is good enough to raise. Don’t fall into the trap of calling with mediocre hands to try and flop a monster, the odds will tell you it just won’t happen often enough. Of course, if you have a really premium hand and there has been a raise, you may want to re-raise depending on the table conditions.

The Flop

On the flop, if you are playing a tight poker strategy, generally you want to make a continuation bet AKA the cbet. Your opponents will put you on a premium hand so there is no reason not to continue representing strength on the flop. While this trategy works good against players who play fit and fold poker, it’s not the best strategy to use against calling stations, who will call you down with rubbish, so be more inclined to cbet against these type of players for value instead of as a bluff. The only time I would consider slow playing was if I flopped a monster and the board isn’t scary, so the opponent could not draw to a better hand. Instead of continuation betting because there isn’t much they can call with, you can throw them some bait by showing weakness and let them take the bait hook line and sinker.

Don’t turn into a cbet monkey though. I see far too many online players cbet with too much frequency. When deciding whether to continuation bet or not, think about what your opponent could have. You should always be putting your opponent on hand ranges, so you can more accurately decide if the flop helped them, and if it didn’t bet even if you miss the flop. In summary, by playing fewer hands pre flop you will hit the flop hard more often the not, so your decisions won’t be as tough.

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