A post about the first two cards

[Greg J]

I’ve noticed that a lot of newer posters are posting hands where huge preflop mistakes are being made. I wanted to try and address some of this. This may or may not result from a notion that “postflop play is more important.” A lot of the more experienced posters seem to put forth this attitude, and while not completely meritless, it is misleading for some newer people. I want to state this explicitly: good preflop play is essential to being a winning poker player. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition to winning consistently. Furthermore, preflop and postflop play go together, as the decisions you make early in a hand go on to affect the ones you make later.

Some thoughts on the first two cards:

First, limping with small pocket pairs and A2s is fine in most micro limit games in any position. Sometimes you will find yourself at a game where you have to muck these hands. That is okay, just be cognizant that you are at such a table (and while you are at it, it might be a good idea to uncheck the “autopost blinds” box and make that your last orbit). I don’t want to get too preachy about table selection though, but just bear in mind that in most circumstances, limping here is good. (I personally like playing on a tighter than average table sometimes, especially when I can bully the blinds. Poker is not only about making money, but to it’s about having fun too. I feel this makes up for having to fold a hand like 44 UTG+1 when I can use the same hand to take down the blinds later… but I will get to that below.)

Second, a sure sign of a poker player who does not totally know what he is doing is when he open limps from the button, CO, or two off the button. When I see a player do this, I make a note of it. If you are the first in, and are limping with A9s from MP2, I’m sorry, but you are a lost little lamb. Stop doing that. There is a sliding scale of what you should do that I will sum up as follows: when you are first in, the later you act the more prone you should be to raise. I’m not sure I’ve ever read this anywhere, but at this point it’s totally intuitive to me. It’s folded to me on the CO with 44. Easy raise. Even if the blinds are loose, your positional advantage the rest of the hand will make you money. NEVER open limp from LP. When you are in the last 3 positions, and it is folded to you, you have two options: raise or fold. If your hand it worth playing, raise. If the blinds are weak, feel free to take them down with a hand like A5o.

Relatedly, there is a technique I use a lot, and a lot of others too obviously, where you raise to isolate a loose and poor player – like a 60 vpip and <1 aggression person. This is usually called an isolation play – I like to call it a semi-blind steal. Criteria: you are in LP, a weak and loose player has limped before you, and you thinking you can get the blinds to fold to a raise. Raise some hands you might not otherwise raise, like A8o, K9s, or 55. This can take out the blinds, who might be more prone to respect your raise given the fact that there was already a limper, and you will hopefully be HU with a weak player, with a good chance of having the best hand and a positional advantage, in a pot inflated with dead money: a win-win-win-win situation!!!

Third: cold calling. Do it rarely. It would not be a huge error if you never cold called preflop, but sometimes it’s worth it. E.g. you have 99 on the button and several players have already cold called an EP raise. Hell, if there are 4 or more cold callers, it’s probably okay to add any pocket pair just hoping to hit a set. But if it’s folded to you after an open raise, fold your 33 or your 77. If you don’t, reraise (if you have a read to do that), but for the love of God, don’t call!

Hopefully this post will help some of you newer guys who have been struggling with preflop play (and there have been a lot of you lately). [preaching]Guys, we need to remember preflop play is important – VERY important. The attitude that “postflop is where you win the money” is true to a point, but if you play like crap preflop then this limits what you can do on later streets. I think we should perhaps look at the game of limit hold em more holistically – all streets go together. We should stop compartmentalizing so much. The decisions you make regarding the first two cards affect the decisions you make regarding the next five. Preflop play is inextricably linked to postflop play – we should treat the game as such. [/preaching]