Poker has many strategies attached to it, but few are as important as the starting hands you choose to play. It is not only the two cards in front of you, you have to consider when determine whether a hand is suitable to play or not you also need to check what position you are sitting in the hand and how you are going to play the certain hand, if you have not met these 3 criteria for the hand then fold it pre-flop. If you carry on trying to play a hand that does not match these criteria you could be throwing away good amounts of your bankroll for a lost cause. 

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I am going to break this article down into 4 ranges of poker starting hands; I am then going to give you my opinion on how you should play these hands. Please remember this is only a general guide if you see there is a situation where it is feasible to play a hand out of the ranges I will place them in. please do not hesitate to play that hand.

Premium hands – the group of cards I would consider to be premium starting hands are, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, AK, AQ. If you pick up one of these hands, you should be looking to raise from any position, and for any amount. You should also expect that pre-flop you are carrying the best hand on the table; you should be looking to maybe only take one or two callers with you after your high raise pre flop. If you manage to catch a card on the flop you should also be expecting to be in the lead from this, as at minimum you have picked up a very high pair with an equally good kicker card. Beware, you do not win these types of hands 100% of the time, but you should be looking at taking the majority of pots with this range of cards.

Strong Speculative hands – the cards I would place in this range are AJ, A10, KQ, KJ, QJ, Q10 I would also be inclined to place every pocket pair from 99 – 77 in this range, the reason these are referred to as strong speculative hands, is that these hands represent fairly strong pocket cards. If the flop goes your way you could be looking at hitting top pair with a good kicker, in the same respect if you flop throws up a low board your pocket pairs should put you in a good position to take it down.  I would not advise playing these hands under a raise unless the raise is small and you have position on the opponent, if they have put in a pre flop raise the chance is you are going to run into their “premium hand”. This hand is best played with a cheap flop or a small raise if you have good position on only one or two reaming players. I would advise against playing these hands in an early position as you could just be throwing away unnecessary chips.

Weak speculative hands – this is the range of cards I would class as weak speculative hands.  66, A9s, A5s-A2s, K9s,, KT,, QT, Q9s,J10 QJ, T8s, 97s, 87s, 76s, 65s,55, 44, 33, 22, K9, J9, 86s,T9, 98, 85s ,Q9, J8, T8, 87, 76, 65. There are many factors that need to be considered before you play these hands, you need to take into account your position in the hand, as well as some other pre – flop variables. You need to see how many players are currently active in the hand, how much money is already placed in the pot, and how much it will cost you to see a flop with the current hand. You must ask yourself all of these questions before you pursue a hand from these pocket cards, this does not mean to say that a profitable hand cannot come from these cards. There are many flush or straight draw possibilities from the cards mentioned, so if you adopt the right style of play you could disguise the cards and catch some good hands.

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Hands you should fold – you should really be looking to fold any other hand that has not been mentioned in this article. The reason I say this is any other hand you may pick up will not lend its self to any straight draw, you would only flop a low pair, and if you manage to hit a flush with these hands it will be of a poor value.

This article is only a guide sometimes it is good to mix up your play. You should look to play some hands that go against your set table presence this will keep players guessing, and make you far less easy to gauge an accurate read on. This in turn will make you a more profitable poker player.

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