Playing pre-flop is the first betting round in Texas Holdem. Each player is dealt two cards and the action starts with the player in the UTG position. While there are many considerations which need to be considered when playing your hand pre-flop, two of the most important factors are hand strength and your position at the table.

Understanding relative hand strength pre-flop is not a hard thing to do if you analyze a starting hand chart. By familiarizing yourself with a starting hand chart, you can identify the top starting hands you should be playing. If you are playing tight and only playing premium hands, you will be playing hands like strong top pair hands like AK/AQ and big pocket pairs. But if you were to only play premium hands, observant players will pickup on the fact that you are only playing big hands, and it makes it easy for them to get away from a hand when you show aggression, which is why you really need to widen your starting hand range, to play more speculative hands which can hit the flop hard.

The very best starting hand in Texas Holdem is AA but getting dealt pocket aces by no means guarantees you will win the hand, it is only the best hand pre-flop. In fact, if the player(s) in the hand are betting aggressively by the time it gets to the river, and your hand doesn’t improve, there is a very good chance your AA is no longer the best hand.

To mix things up you want to play cards which can crack the big hands like small pocket pairs and any cards that are suited and closely connected such as 98s, and T9s. When you hit the flop hard with these types of hands, if your opponent has an overpair its going to be very difficult for them to get away from their hand, and quite often you will win a large sized pot.

When playing pre-flop in Texas Holdem, remember that you want to play big hands in big pots and small hands in small pots. By “big” and “small” I refer to the strength of the hand. However, the cards you play is not the only consideration.

Position is key in Texas Holdem and probably more important the your two hole cards you are playing with. That may sound like a ridiculous statement but its not. What you need to realize is that Texas Holdem is a game of mis-information. Any additional information you can extract in a hand is going to be useful and helpful in your decision making. When you have position in the hand, you will get to act last, and the later you act the more information you have over your opponents, since the other players will be acting before you.

When you are playing in early position, you really should be looking to play only the very best starting hands most of the time, because if you get called by another player, there is a strong possibility you will be playing out of position in the hand.

The button in Texas Holdem is the position which gets to act last, so the closer you are to the button when deciding what action to take pre-flop, the more you should be looking to widen your starting hand requirements, and raising more marginal hands in an attempt to steal the blinds. One of the huge advantages of playing in late position is that even when you get called and you happen to miss the flop, since you were the pre-flop aggressor, if the flop likely didn’t help your opponent either, you can easily take down the pot with a continuation bet. But I will discuss this strategy in more depth in the playing the flop article.

By now you should be aware about the importance of hand strength and position in Texas Holdem, when deciding what to do pre-flop. While these two factors are pretty much the only thing you have to be concerned about to beat micro stakes cash games, there are other considerations you need to keep in mind, especially in tougher mid to high stakes games.

When playing against tougher, more aggressive opponents, you need to understand that they are also very familiar with the fundamentals of the game, and the importance of position. If they see that you are always raising in late position, they will suspect you are raising with less then premium hands, and will play back at you. So in tougher games you need to be making the necessary adjustments when playing pre-flop.

For example, even though it can be great to raise with small pairs like 22-44 in early position in micro stakes games, because when you hit your set, you will likely win someones stack, in tougher games, there is a lot more 3betting, so folding these type of hands in EP is a consideration due to the likelihood of getting squeeze raised.