Starting Hands & Behaviour

You might think that starting hand strategy in poker is all about getting big cards and winning with them, but that's only half the story. The other half of the story is avoiding getting yourself into situations where you call down with weak cards.

If you've played poker already, you'll probably nod your head in agreement when you hear this situation:

You're in the Big Blind and you catch top pair on the flop with a weak kicker. A player bets, and you call the flop with your top pair. The player bets both the turn and river, and you call again (even when you really don't want to). When you turn your cards over, you find to your dismay that your opponent has a bigger kicker and wins the pot. You've just been out-kicked! This happens all the time and the key is to let it happen to your opponents - not you!

Remember: Position is extremely important. Sometimes even more important than the cards you are holding.

Position, position, position

Your position at the poker table during a hand should have a big influence on the way you play any hand. Your position can determine how much money you win, or even whether or not you actually win the hand. Position in poker is something that is all too often overlooked by newcomers to the game, and sometimes even by some of the more experienced players. To become a solid player, you have to exercise good poker strategy and use position to your advantage. If you are not always trying to keep aware of your position at the table, then you are leaving a big hole in your game.



Your position in each hand is determined by the placement of the ‘button’. The ‘button’ is the dealer’s seat and all actions must take place one after another in an anticlockwise motion from player to player, starting with the player to the immediate left of the dealer. The group of players that will be the first few to act on each betting round are known as players in ‘early position’, and therefore the players that will be the last few to act on each round are known as the players in ‘late position’. As you might have already guessed, the players in between these two groups are known as players in ‘middle position’. The button is the best seat in the hand because that player will be acting last on every round of the hand, except only for pre-flop.

The players that are in late position have an advantage over the other players at the table because they will be the last to act on every betting round. This means that they are able to see how their opponents act and play their hand before they have to decide how to play their own hand. For example, if a player in late position sees an opponent check before them, they can infer that there opponent has a weak hand, and so they may decide to make a bluff to try and take down the pot. If the positions had been switched around however, the player now in early position will have a harder time trying to run a successful bluff, because they no longer have any information on the strength of their opponent’s hand. Being out of position in any hand can cause many problems, and hinder any good Texas Holdem strategy you might posses.

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When deciding whether or not to enter a pot you should always be considering your position at the table. If you are one of the first to act you have to remember that your opponents will have access to more information about your hand on each betting round, and so will be able to have the greater ability to bluff you off of your hand if you show any weakness. Knowing how to bluff in poker is important, but even more important is knowing when to bluff. If you intend to play a hand from early position, you should make sure it is a premium hand to give yourself the best chance of winning. Consequently, you can loosen up your starting hand requirements in the later positions because you will have the advantage of acting last on each round.

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Poker Bankroll Management

Bankroll management is one of the most important skills necessary to be a winning player over the long haul. It's a poker skill as surely as bluffing and game choice and starting hand selection. An adequate bankroll can compensate for a lot of weakness in a player's game, while an inadequate bankroll can (and usually will) often kill a player playing spectacularly.

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But some people have a pretty peculiar idea of what a "bankroll" is. Many players don't even have a bankroll. Microsoft's Bill Gates sometimes plays 3-6 in Las Vegas. It could be said that Bill is adequately bankrolled for that game, but more accurately, he has no poker bankroll. Bankroll is a non-issue for well-to-do players playing at a small or moderate limit. On the other hand, for purely professional players, bankroll is everything. It's like a truck to a truck driver. If you don't have one, you don't work (or you work for someone else). Bankroll is the issue for these players.

In between these two groups falls the mass of players, and here is where a poker "bankroll" starts to befuddle many people.

I have seen quite a few people refer to something called a "session bankroll", apparently the amount of money a player should put at risk in a certain game on a certain day. Others then also wonder how much they should buy-in to a game for (for instance, $100 for a 3-6 game). It's hard to come up with two less important strategy issues in all of poker!

To winning or breakeven players with an adequate job for their lifestyle (meaning they don't absolutely need poker income to maintain their basic lifestyle), and to players who depend on poker for part of their income, how much money they put into action any particular day should be a reflection of decisions they've made based on the amount of money they have consciously deemed their overall poker bankroll. They should've already chosen to play at a limit where the results of any particular day have virtually zero ramifications to their overall bankroll -- as long as they have the sense to not turn a "day" or a "session" into a 54-hour hemorrhage-fest.

If you are a winning or breakeven player, playing at a limit you are adequately bankrolled for, what you do on Tuesday is irrelevant. What you buy-in for also is irrelevant (as long as you always have enough chips in front of you to play each hand as it should be played). The dollars you are winning or losing that day should be irrelevant in your considerations of when to quit the game. What matters is playing correctly, here and now, in conjunction with a preconceived, sensible, overall strategy. To oversimplify it, this means: play good at a limit you can afford to play. The other considerations are not just trivial, they are giving in to superficial thinking, which reflects a flaw in your mental game. You must employ a disciplined bankroll strategy.

What about losing players? That's even easier. Losing players should bring to the casino exactly the amount of money they can afford to lose -- both on a dollar basis and a psychological one. And they should mentally put all that money on the table when they sit down. Buy-in for any amount more than the minimum needed to play each hand, but consider all your afford-to-lose money on the table -- no more, no less.

Bankroll issues are really more a function of personal circumstance than poker variance. So, what an adequate bankroll is for a winning or break even player with specific life responsibilities playing a specific game is another, more complex question. It's an important question. What is not important, as long as you exercise a microscopic amount of self-control, is how you do on any particular day. Expending brain cells to think about how much to risk on a day, or how much to sit at the table with (unless you are considering image issues), is missing the point of winning poker. Winning is all about what you do, and the reasons you do it. Forget the superficial and focus on the important.