Texas holdem - preflop strategy?

Question

Two part question:

1. What's your rule of thumb before betting in to see the flop? Do you generally wait for something decent, or do you prefer to call in order to see the flop?

2. I like to wait for something decent. What's your advice for me when I play against players who like to see the flop.

Answer 1

well asa a rule of thumb if many goes in the less chances i go in

and i also depends how cheap if they all just call the BB i might call if i have connectors or suited or a pair

also if i am in the BB i dont even look at my cards if it is just called around to me, and then see the flop..if i am raised depending how my stack is i may still call with out looking. then after the flop i check and and then if i am raised i will look and go from there

Answer 2

I've done studies of starting hands and which ones make money and in the end there's few hands that do.  Even a hand like AK only makes money in the hands of the very skillful and most players lose more money than they gain with it and a lot of this has to do with the amount of raising people do with it and it's not that great a hand unless you hit at least a pair with it.  Anyway that discussion is for another day.  

As someone mentioned position is important although this isn't a hard and fast rule and needs to take into account the chances of a raise downstream which means you're looking at how many and how often both.  This is where a program like Poker-Edge (http://www.poker-edge.com?aid=1837b6c3&b... can really help you.

So basically you're playing strong hands and the higher the chance you'll be raised and need to throw it away the more premium they need to be.  On average if you're playing more than the top 10% of hands you're playing too many.

Tournaments are a little different as you want to play looser at the beginning especially if there's lots of post flop action, and you can see it pretty cheaply.  

Of course how many players are in the hand matters and if you're on the button and no one is in the pot yet then you may actually want to raise with some hands you'd normally throw away - Ace low and such.  

As a good rule though if you think you're playing too loose you probably are and if you don't you still probably are.  You want to choose hands that you are making money on and if you have Poker Tracker or a similar program and you go back and look at your starting hands after awhile you probably will be surprised that you're only making money with the real good ones - AA KK QQ JJ AK maybe, AQ maybe, AJ maybe, KQ maybe.  This isn't to say this is all you should be playing and depending on your position and situation you'd want to add a few hands to this but not many.

King Cobra Poker

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Answer 3

1. In early position I usually only play premium hands and generally open for a raise.  In middle and late position I'll call with suited connectors and smaller pocket pairs if my stack is large enough.

2. Against players who like to see the flop I like to tighten up so that when I see the flop I am fairly sure I will have the best hand if   either of my cards hit.