Starting Hand Theory

I'm a poker learner eager to understand the logic behind various poker concepts. Can someone help me with the theory behind starting hand requirements.
My guess is that at a 10 man table if you are first to act you need to open nothing but the top 10% of hands.
Likewise first to act with 4 players behind you you need top 20%. IOW, ratio of ranked starting hands over players still to act. Am I right?
Also, is there any mathematical concepts behind the decisions on re-raising, calling etc. after players have entered ahead of you?

[DRKEVDC]

Get SSHE, it will tell you exactly what hands to play from what position. Once you have mastered that you can "take the training wheels off".

[elmitchbo]

it's more complicated than top 10% of hands. you are on the right track, particularly with your statement that the shrinking field(4 people in the hand instead of 10) should cause your hand requirements to go down. thats part of positional play.

you have to mix up your game and take some risks with lesser hands based on implied odds. otherwise you will quickly be identified as a rock. many hands like suited connectors aren't in the top 10% of hands, but they are very profitable if you play them in the right situations.

are you familiar with the 'gap concept'? that's what you need to know about playing a hand after some one has raised in front of you. do a search and you'll find lots of info, but very breifly... you need a better hand to call a raise than you would have needed to make the rasie in you opponenets position.

limit or no-limit?

[Xhad]

There are several major problems with this reasoning:

-It ignores forced money in the pot. Most hold-'em games have the same blind structure but there are various structures that start with either more or less money in the pot. As an extreme example, if the casino were to add $1000 to a $2/$4 pot as a promotion for one hand only, you should be playing any hand.
-Implied odds. Sometimes a hand will not be good enough to play on it's sheer win percentage, but it tends to flop draws or hands that play well postflop, and can expect to win more than their share on later streets.
-Reverse implied odds. ATo is a top 11% hand, which means you should play it in early position according to your theory, but this is a bad idea because it's an easily dominated hand, meaning it stands to lose money on later rounds.
-Fold equity. Sometimes if you open for a raise, better or similar hands fold. How aggressive you should raise depends on how much your opponents fold, but some weak-tight players fold so much you can raise their blinds from late position with any two cards.

king yao's book goes thru the % of hands you play in each position given different circumstances... i know all books have starting hand tables, but i was curious in the %'s, and it's very low. something that i think is very low is calling a raise or in fact just playing after a raise.

in terms of getting starting chart (miller or yao or gary carson are fine) and then moving away from it somewhat for your style and type of table. i'd be a little careful. to me that thinking eventually gets to playing crap hands (hey, a QTo, i can play that).

but yao king has the %'s which is interesting and another way of thinking of it.

[Xhad]

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in terms of getting starting chart (miller or yao or gary carson are fine) and then moving away from it somewhat for your style and type of table. i'd be a little careful. to me that thinking eventually gets to playing crap hands (hey, a QTo, i can play that).

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That's the point, if you have good position and you really know what you're doing, QTo is a fine hand. Not great, but fine.

This site explains the math really good. It's for 5 card draw poker -- not a bad way to start if you're a beginner.

Basically, it calculates the odds of people obtaining different hands for basic five-card poker. You can use this info to figure out the chance of you winning given (a) your hand and (b) the number of people playing.

The url is *link removed*

Good luck!

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in terms of getting starting chart (miller or yao or gary carson are fine) and then moving away from it somewhat for your style and type of table. i'd be a little careful. to me that thinking eventually gets to playing crap hands (hey, a QTo, i can play that).

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zhad, i agree.. but i bet you 90% who get away from the tables get miles away from the table.... i'd say i'm tighter than 99% i play against and i'm no where near as tight as the tables suggest....

one thing to keep in mind is that some people in full table and everyone in shorthanded eventually realize you play very few hands and get out of the way.... easy to think they are just stupid fish, but it does seem like people notice if you fold 15 non-blind hands in a row, like can happen with the tables.

you are very right though... position (and i'll add characteristics of the table) are key... my original point was that i think most people get miles and miles away from the starting hand charts.

That's the point, if you have good position and you really know what you're doing, QTo is a fine hand. Not great, but fine.

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Ok. So my reasoning is correct but adjustments have to be made to it to take into account the table conditions. Would I be right in assuming that in the hypothetical situation where everybody can see everybody elses cards that my reasoning would be correct?