Daniel L. Cox
Editor, Poker Insider
Magazine
September 1st, 2009
This article is an excerpt taken from “Winning Blue-Collar Hold’em” by Daniel L. Cox.
Available at Amazon.com.
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“In order to win consistently at poker, you need to
under-stand which hands are profitable to play and which aren’t.
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The game of controlled aggression has turned maniacal at times, with
many players playing (or praying) with hole cards that should never see a flop.
When one plays a tight–aggressive style, sticking to the premium starting hands
is the first factor to consider. It is common to go one or two rounds without
getting a solid starting hand to bet. Patience is the virtue you must possess
if you desire to succeed. You should only play less than premium hands under
two circumstances: to enhance your table image or to protect your blinds. These
aspects are in later chapters. For now, you should look at the most profitable
of the 169 combinations of hole cards available in the standard 52-card deck
and the betting strategy you use with them for each of the three positions on
the table.
Most poker authorities have their own criteria for deciding
which cards are premium starting hands. This book uses rankings based on
percentages. The percentages found in the figures are the probability the
listed hole cards would win if the hand should go to the river at a full table
of nine or ten players. The probability of having Ace–Ace as the hole cards and
subsequently winning increases from 31% with nine opponents to over 85% in
heads-up play. The reason for this dramatic difference is that in ten-handed
play, any of your nine opponents can win the hand. Taking the individual
statistics of each of the nine other hands and adding them together, at best,
the sum equals 69%. Sections with more detail on short-handed and heads-up play
are in Chapter 10 – Playing Tournaments.
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They say that pocket aces win the small pots and lose
the big ones.
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There are several criteria for determining premium starting hands.First, it is the cards themselves. The individual ranks and combined strength,
as well as the suit(s) are important. Weak players often take inferior hands
too far and lose money as a result. Second, as found in Chapter 4 – Position,
Position, Position, one must factor table position into the decision process.
Third, the size of the pot and subsequent pot odds, as seen in Chapter 5 – The
Wizard of Odds, plays an important part in the decision process. Fourth, the
type of game you are in can change how you feel about your pocket cards. A
table full of loose-aggressive players makes many premium starting hands less
attractive than in a tight game. Finally, the quality of your opponents can
strengthen or weaken staring hands. Higher quality players make fewer mistakes
and, therefore, do not give as much value when you have a strong hand. Lower
quality players often do not believe another player has the cards they are
portraying, and often pay more to see that they are holding the second-best
hand.
I once read an article
that showed that a person could make nearly $25.00 an hour playing in a
$150.00 buy-in, $1/$2 blinds, no-limit ring game by going All In with only
the top four hands. The rationale was that you would double up once every
two to three hours and this would make up for any hands where the top four
hands were beat. It takes six to eight hours a day, over an extended period
of time, to realize these profits, but it appears possible.
The strongest four hands in poker are the Fearsome Foursome.
Pre-flop, these hands have the greatest chance of winning. You can play the top
four hands found in Figure 3-1 from any position. The proper no-limit bet is a
raise of three and one half times the big blind. With pocket Aces, Kings,Queens or suited Ace–King in a limit game, you should
raise and re-raise before the flop until you cap the betting.
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Hole Cards
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Rank
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Percentage
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Ace-Ace
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1
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31.09%
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King-King
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2
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26.02%
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Queen-Queen
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3
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22.03%
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Ace-King
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4
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20.09%
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Fearsome Foursome
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The proper way to play pocket Jacks is to bet All-in
pre-flop and fold after the flop.
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The next four best starting hands round out the Elite 8. Though these
are strong hands, you have to be a bit more careful with pocket Jacks and the
suited high Aces, but the chances are still huge that you are top hand before
the flop. You should raise and try to drive out the drawing hands, if there are
no raises in front of you. Depending on the style of your opponents, beware of
the flop that shows Aces or Kings. If there is an over card on the board and a
tight player raises in front of you, your best decision may be to fold your
Jacks.
The interesting thing about the strength of the Ace–King and
Ace–Queen is that in tournament situations they seem to bust out more players
than any other hand. Though they are very strong pre-flop, they are still just
drawing hands. Often, high cards are a coin flip pre-flop, and, depending on
the flop, can become very weak, very fast. Players always show amazement when a
high pocket pair is beaten, but as you can see from Figure 3-1 and 3-2, they
are easily beat when they do not improve on the flop.
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Hole Cards
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Rank
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Percentage
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Jack-Jack
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5
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19.09%
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Ace-Queen (S)
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6
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18.66%
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King-Queen(S)
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7
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18.08%
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Ace-Jack (S)
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8
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17.47%
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Elite 8
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The reason pocket Jacks are so vulnerable is that too many
players want to see the flop with a Queen, King or Ace in the hole. The odds of
a face card hitting on the flop are high, though the odds of your face card
hitting are cut by two-thirds. Hitting the higher pair on the flop occurs often
enough to destroy the Jacks, further fueling the loose players’ philosophy that
any card can win. In the final analysis, holding on to face cards without a
strong kicker, especially when you are out of position, is extremely
detrimental to your chip stack.
This article is an excerpt taken from “Winning Blue-Collar Hold’em” by Daniel L. Cox.
Available at Amazon.com.
