No Limit Hold’em Starting Hands December 19, 2006
Posted by yorkshirepuddings in Cash game, Live Poker, Online Poker, Strategy.trackback
One of the first questions people ask when they start playing Texas Hold’em is usually what starting hands to play before the flop. Fixed Limit (FL) Hold’em is relatively easy to plot a table for due to the betting structure etc and if anybody wants an Excel spreadsheet with the recommended starting hands for Early position, Middle Position, Late position and from the Blinds (taken from a best selling Poker Strategy book) post a comment (I’ll respond via email to you and delete your comment).
Anyway, back to No Limit (NL)! NLHE is a totally different beast from FLHE for reasons that are so obvious they don’t need explaining here and if you need them explaining then I think you need to find yourself a new game 
Hands that are basically unplayable in certain positions in FLHE become profitable in NLHE as you have the potential to win your opponents entire stack, which could be 100xBB or more, where as in FLHE the most you can expect to win from your opponent is 16xBB (assuming a cap of 4 bets on each street). So hands like T9s can become very profitable in the right situations, as can small pocket pairs. In FLHE in Middle Position (MP) I’d want at least 2 maybe 3 limpers in front of me before I called preflop with say 55 but in NLHE I’d be quite happy to limp with these even first to act, Under The Gun (UTG) if the table wasn’t being overly aggressive as if I flop a set I have the potential to win a huge pot. I’d much rather have QJs than A8o even though A8o could win the pot without having to improve along the way. To get things under way I’ll list hands into 4 (A to D) categories and then in a separate post I’ll list which hands are profitable in certain situations and in each of the positions of the table. These are entirely meant for NLHE cash games and not tournament play as such.
A-listed hands
These are hands that you should be happy to see dealt to you preflop and as a general rule play well in any position when playing deep stack (100xBB) NLHE. They include:
- Any Pocket Pair
- Any Suited Ace
- Suited connectors from KQs down to 54s
B-listed hands
These hands are weaker than the hands listed but they are still very often playable in deep stack NLHE games. These category includes:
- Any two suited cards Jack or higher
- 1 gapped suited connectors from QTs down to 53s
C-listed hands
As expected, these hands are weaker still but are still playable in the right situations, usually with weak opponents and being in position. This category includes:
- Suited Kings
- 2 unsuited cards Ten or higher
- 2 gapped suited connectors from Q9s down to 52s
- Unsuited connectors from T9o down to 54o
D-listed hands
Judging by the poor hands in list C you’d be surprised to find another category of hands. This category contains any hand not mentioned in the above lists. That is not to say never play these hands but it’s very likely you’ll be just throwing your cash away if you do. If you’re wanting to play these hands use them for stone cold bluffs, I mean what would you expect a hand like 84o beat, seriously?
It would be very easy to say “Always raise with JJ” etc but there are so many variables in NLHE it is untrue. Over the next post or two I’ll list what hands are recommended from Early position (EP), Middle Position (MP), Late Position (LP) and the dreaded blinds! They will be broken down into the following common situations:
- You are the first to enter the pot
- There is one limper in the pot in front of you
- There are at least 2 limpers in the pot in front of you
- There has been a raise in front of you but no callers
- There has been a raise in front of you and there is at least 1 caller
- There has been a raise met by a re-raise in front of you
That should cover everything I believe. Just so I don’t get told off the information will be based on information publish in No Limit Hold’em: Theory and Practice by David Sklansky and Ed Miller, which I strongly recommend to anyone wanting to play NLHE cash games.
Hope this will become helpful for you! 
Interesting stuff as always.
Reference the book by Sklansky and Miller I am now on my second jaunt through this. Not the easiest book to digest is it?
Like you, I think pre-flop my games pretty solid.
Looking forward to the next post
Good luck
In all honesty I think it is a very simple book to get the gist of although I’ve picked more up through reading it a second time. The equations etc sometimes throw people but they aren’t a necessity as long as you understand how they get to the end result. The top and bottom of the book, IMO, just re-iterates that you should play reasonably tight, aggressive, positional poker and to not worry about results as it’s all about expectation. If you can get your chips in with the best of it enough times then you will be a winner at poker.
People do think that by having a strict starting hand policy entitles them to win but it’s only the beginning as you know. If you can’t play post flop then you’re done for but having a good starting hand strategy lays a good foundation for this and leaves you with easier decisions on later streets!
Very useful
Just a query about the C Hands list. Suited Kings? Am I missing something or do you get +EV by slipping in a few extra cards to the deck? :))))
Hahaha, you know what I mean, hands like KTs you Rodney!
Actually I honestly didn’t know *blush*
Thx, cell . . . useful stuff.
Incidentally, Brian Mulholland wrote an interesting article in CardPlayer recently about being dealt a suited pair.