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Preflop Limit Holdem: Lessons for Beginners, Top Ten Hands Only.To begin with, I recommend playing only the top ten hands and folding on all others. The top ten are, in order of relative promise: A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K, J-J, 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, A-Q, and finally 7-7. Experience has shown me that these are the strongest starting hands in limit Holdem. This beginning "strategy for survival" is designed to keep you in the game while you learn the more subtle techniques that are necessary to beat tougher games, or to extract more money from weak games. And in some games using just this strategy will make you a winner.
With this patient strategy alone, and really not much else in the way of poker instruction, I was able to crush the games in Madison. What happens is that when you consistently play only the top ten hands, your opponents will begin to fear your bets and raises because they'll see that you're always playing something powerful. This fear gives you some leeway to make a few different plays later on, when you've absorbed the intermediate and more advanced advice I'll be giving you later. In other words, the "top ten hands" strategy teaches the right fundamentals. You will need these fundamentals when you do add some intermediate and advanced strategy to your arsenal, because playing supertight alone just won't get the pots in these tougher games: the good hands don't come along often enough, and perhaps even more important, you risk becoming a bit too predictable.
When you break limit Hold em down to its basic elements, good game theory suggests that you wait for big starting hands before you get involved in a hand, because the blinds are relatively small compared with the size of the pots, unless you're playing in a very tight game (which is rare at low stakes). It may seem a bit boring to play only these top ten hands; after all, most of you play poker just to have a good time and socialize—that is, for entertainment. Fair enough, but if you want to win the money, then you need to show some patience and entertain yourself in another way. And, anyway, how entertaining is it to play all the hands and lose most of them?
In general, I recommend playing the top ten hands regardless of your position in the betting order or the number of bets it will cost you to get involved in the hand. Always raise with these hands, no matter what it costs you to get involved. Of course, if you have a lot of evidence to suggest that your 7-7 is beaten (perhaps the tightest player in the game has just re-re-reraised the hand, making it, as we say, "four bets to go"), then you might do well to fold the hand. But in general, playing these hands aggressively is a good way to play Hold em.
I know that you're probably thinking right now, "Is it really that easy? All I have to do is play Phil's top ten hands?" The answer is basically yes, at least as far as your starting requirements (your first two cards) are concerned! Yes, because it will be easy for you to play before the flop (on the first round of betting) when all you have to remember is to play only the top ten. (Playing after the flop is much more complicated, I'm afraid; but don't worry, we'll cover that as well.)
In what follows I'll be giving you a number of examples of hands that will help you understand the best courses of action for a beginning player to take. But before I give you these examples, it's time to introduce those "animals" I promised you. I cannot go much further in teaching you how to play poker without characterizing some of the personality types that you will inevitably face as you play Texas Holdem, because no matter how much you may want to think of Holdem as a card game played by people, in many respects it is even more valid to think of it as a game about people that happens to be played with cards. This becomes more and more true as the stakes get higher and the games get tougher.
Phil's "Animal Types"
These are the five animals: the mouse, lion, jackal, elephant, and eagle. I have created these animals because they seem to he the most common types out there right now.
The mouse is like your old aunt Edna, a conservative type who probably wouldn't even approve of your reading this book. The mouse—like you—plays only the top ten hands but hates to invest any money with a hand as weak as 7-7 or 8-8. The mouse hardly ever raises someone else's bet; but when he does raise, look out, because he has the goods!
The lion is a tough competitor who plays fairly tight poker but doesn't limit himself to the top ten hands. He bluffs with
excellent timing and seems to know when the other players are trying to bluff him. Though he plays pretty tight, he's occasionally out on a limb with a bluff or a semi bluff. You could do worse than play like the lion.
The jackal is loose and wild, and some days it seems as though he's just giving his money away. Because he's involved in so many pots and raises so often, his play can take some pretty big swings. The jackal's logic seems at odds with the logic of all the other players. He just seems crazy! (He's what many of us in poker call a megalomaniac, or sometimes just maniac.) The jackal can hurt you and himself too with his crazy play, because he puts in so many bets. But there is some method to his madness.
He's good at raising the pots at the right times (his style of play gives him many occasions to think about what's going on), and when he does at last win a pot, it's generally huge! If a jackal runs hot by catching good cards for a while, you may become convinced that he's the best player in the world, but when his cards come back to earth, he can lose money as fast as he won it.
The elephant is fairly loose (which means he plays a lot of pots) and seems to be from Missouri, the "Show me" state. He's what we refer to in poker as a "calling station": he never folds when he is supposed to fold, because he doesn't ever believe that you have the goods. Because he's impossible to bluff, no one with much experience ever tries to bluff him—with one exception: can you guess who that is? The elephant keeps feeding the other players his chips, slowly but surely. The elephant isn't very sharp and isn't a very dangerous opponent for most players, but he seems to do well against the jackal, because the jackal keeps on trying to bluff the elephant.
Finally, we have the eagle. The eagle is a rare bird, and you might not ever play with him, because he's one of the top 100 poker players in the world. You'll find the eagle wherever high-stakes poker is played. He flies around high in the sky and swoops down to eat other animals' chips when he's hungry! You'll find the eagles competing every year at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), trying to win world championships and the money and prestige that come with winning them—if not in the tournaments, then perhaps in the big-money side games the WSOP always generates. Learning how to play like an eagle is a lofty and worthwhile goal, but it is beyond the scope of this book. (In fact, if you're able to absorb everything in this book, then perhaps I'll see you sitting across the table from me soon.)
Now that we've pondered the personalities of most of the animals (players) that you'll be playing against, it's time to move forward with some examples of how to play the top ten hands to perfection. (As we proceed, you'll see the value of recognizing these personality types.) Again, the basic premise in playing the top ten hands is this: always raise or reraise with these hands before the flop, no matter what the action has been before it's your turn to act. (While I lay out these examples, I'll begin to weave into the equations some ways to play the hands somewhat differently, depending on which animals you're playing against.)
Raising with a Top Ten Hand in Late Position
The game is $2-$4 at your local bar. You hold J-J on the button. The player in the first position (see the illustration) has raised, making it two bets, or $4, to go, and the jackal, in the second
position, has reraised (The jackal reraised! What a surprise!), making it three bets, or $6, to go. You then raise it again to make it four bets, or $8, to go. This hand is easy enough to play because you have one of those top ten hands and also have the advantage of late position.
Beware of the Mouse
The game is $5-$10 at the local businessmen's club. You have 9-9 in the small blind, and the jackal, in the third position, has raised it to two bets, or $10, to go. Then the lion, in the fourth position, makes it three bets, or $15, to go. Now, the mouse on the button makes it four bets to go! Yikes, what to do? You know that the lion probably has a strong hand, but the mouse making it four bets, even over the top of the lion? That is big trouble!
You decide that the mouse probably has A-A or K-K, and you throw your hand away right then and there, because you figure that you're a 4½ -to-l underdog (a small pair is roughly a 4½ -to-1 underdog against a big pair). I know that I've said you should always play these hands, but sometimes a little discretion is the better part of valor. If no animal personalities had entered the picture, you could play this hand—but poker is about people as well as game theory. Deciding to call the four bets in this case wouldn't actually be foolhardy—but it would be a pretty weak play, one that would lose money over the long run. Many players who consider themselves experts would call this a terrible play, but they're forgetting to consider the very large pots you're likely to win in such cases if you do happen to "flop a set" (three of a kind, in this case three nines).
Reraising the Jackal with a Top Ten Hand in Cyberspace
The game is $10-$20 limit (which means you could win or lose $1,000 on any given night) at UltimateBet.com, an online poker site. You have A-K in the second position and with your raise you make it $20 to go. The elephant, in the fourth position, calls the $20 (that's what elephants do, after all), and then the jackal makes it $30 to go from the small blind. What should you do? You make it $40 to go, figuring that you have both the jackal and the elephant beat. The elephant has probably called with a hand too weak to call with, and the jackal has probably raised with a hand too weak to raise with.
If either of them has a pair, then you will need to make a hand, but this is still a good time to play aggressively. Making it four bets here is an especially good play because the jackal could have anything. And putting in those extra bets now will make the pot so large that you'll probably be forced to play the hand farther than you might want to, making it easier to call the jackal down with ace high. This is good, because no one will be able to bluff you off your A-K if you miss the flop. The pot will be large enough to make it right to call even if you miss the flop.
A Top Ten Hand against a Mouse
The game is $15-$30 limit at the Mirage poker room in Las Vegas. The jackal in seat one raises the bet, making it $30 to go. The mouse on the button makes it three bets, or $45 to go. You have K-K in the big blind, so you make it $60 to go. Yes, the mouse's raise is ominous, but you have K-K, the second-best-possible hand, and you need to raise with it no matter what the hand looks like otherwise.
Pocket Aces
You have A-A in any position before the flop. Put in as many bets as you can before the flop, regardless of what your opponents do! This is the best possible hand in Hold em!
Kings, Queens, and A-K
You have K-K, Q-Q, or A-K in any position before the flop. Again, put as many bets out there as you can before the flop! With any of these you have one of the four best hands in Holdem
Pocket Jacks
You have J-J before the flop, in any position. OK, you have the fifth best hand in Hold'em, and in general I would say never fold this hand before the flop in limit Hold'em. But there may come a time or two, as you become a lion, when you choose to fold this hand before the flop. Maybe, for example, the tightest mouse on the planet has made it four bets to go, and you just have a strong feeling that you're beat. After all, what hand would encourage the tightest player in the world to make it four bets to go? Probably A-A or K-K. But because this is the beginners' section, I'd advise you to put in your four bets anyway; when you are a lion you will know when the time is right to fold this hand.
Before the flop, then, successful play in Hold'em is pretty darn easy using the top-ten-hands strategy. In general, you raise or reraise every time you have a top ten hand, and you fold the rest of your hands. The exceptions are: when a mouse makes a raise or reraise (two bets or three bets), a lion makes it three bets (a reraise), or an elephant makes it three bets (since it is out of the ordinary for the elephant ever to bet his own hand). In these cases, you might want to back off if your top ten hand is 9-9, 8-8, 7-7, or A-Q.
Notice that I'm not diagramming the way you should play every hand. There are just too many variables for me to attempt that. The fact is that the play of some of these hands depends on the opponents involved. But I've given you a few things to think about, and you will develop many more things to think about as you gain more experience and a greater feel for the game. It's time now to move on toward the next step in playing a limit Texas Hold em hand: how a beginner should play limit Holdem on the flop.
Playing the Flop for Hold'em Beginners: The Power of the Raise
The principle that I am going to teach you in this section is how to use a raise on the flop to find out "where you are at" in a hand. I'll show you how to use the raise or reraise on the flop to gain information, so as to learn, perhaps, whether you have the best hand or not. Learning that is crucial to your decision-making process for the rest of the hand, and sometimes you have to pay heavily for the information! Another great thing about using a raise or reraise on the flop is that even though your purpose in betting was to find out if you had the best hand, your aggressive betting often causes a better hand to fold. Aggressive play in Holdem is often rewarded in ways you weren't anticipating at the time; this is one of the reasons why jackals have developed their particular playing style, and why they seem to win more often than they should.
After all, most of the time the flop that you are hoping for in Holdem just isn't there. When I make it three bets to go in a Holdem hand with K-K, I'm hoping that no ace will hit the flop! And yet an ace does fall on the flop roughly 30 percent of the time. When I have Q-Q in a big multiway pot (with two or more opponents), then I'm hoping for neither an ace nor a king on the flop, because an ace or a king on the flop is the most likely way for me to lose the pot (to someone holding A-K or something similar). Yet often the ace or the king does come on the flop. But when you have Q-Q, and three small cards beneath the queen come on the flop, the hand is easy to play on the flop: just jam (raise and reraise) the pot!
I've been telling you to "ram and jam" (raise and reraise) with my top ten hands before the flop, but what happens when you've made it four bets to go with 10-10 and the flop comes 2-Q-K? This situation is a good bit trickier than one where you make it four bets to go with 10-10 and the flop comes down 10-7-2 (you have flopped the best possible hand in this case): there, you just jam it.
You'll be able to handle the dream flops, or even the really terrible flops, but what do you do when you're heavily involved in a hand before the flop but then have what for you is a marginal flop? What you do is raise your opponents as if you have hit the flop perfectly, and then watch to see how they react to your raises. If you get the strong impression that you're beaten, on the basis of your opponents' reactions to your raises, then fold. But if you're pretty sure you still have the best hand, then keep on betting or calling the extra $900 that I got the others to put into this pot before the flop. Some other strong players wouldn't have bet on the flop either, figuring that someone had to have an ace! I assumed or gambled (hoped) that my opponents had cards like K-10, Q-J, or 10 of Clubs and 8 of Clubs and for a $300 bet on the flop I earned $2,400.
If I had simply checked on the flop, rather than betting, then someone else might have tried to bluff, and I would have had a tough call, since I couldn't beat a pair of nines or aces. If I had checked and everyone had checked behind me, and then a king, queen, jack, or ten had come off on the turn, then I would probably have been beaten and would not have wanted to call a bet! Through playing this hand properly and making the bet on the flop, I won a pot that many players would not have won. Andy Glazer says this is a "Smith Barney pot," in the sense that I got my money the old-fashioned way: I earrrnnned it!
This is the principle I'm trying to illustrate, the principle of betting or raising on the flop, when you have a top ten hand, to find out if yours is the best hand. In this case I was representing an ace with my bet, and fortunately no one had an ace or a nine. If someone had raised me on this hand after I'd bet my 8-8 on the flop, then I most likely would have had to fold my hand, but the $300 bet was going to give me some valuable information, or a better chance of winning the pot (if it drove out someone who held something like K-Q and who might have caught that king or queen on the turn or the river), or, as wound up happening here, the whole pot.
Although I won the battle in this hand, I ended up losing the war in this particular tournament, going on to finish in twentieth place in a field of 100. Unfortunately for me on this day, poker tournaments usually conclude by paying only one table per hundred players, and here it was only the final table of nine players who "cashed."
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