Advanced Starting Hand Selection

You will often hear players say that a certain style is best.  You shouldn’t allow other people’s opinions to affect how you play.  Some players want to be seen as aggressive and therefore, they sometimes make bad aggressive plays.  Some players have been taught to worry about their own HUD statistics and that influences how they play. 

When considering which starting hands you should play, you have to get beyond the starting hand recipe guides that you see in books.  I have provided a recipe for the NIT and TAGfish styles on my website.  However, you need to move on from there eventually. 

All starting hands are playable in specific situations and with the exception of AA, all starting hands can be folded pre-flop under specific conditions.  You should just make the best play at any particular decision point. 

In this article, we are going to look at starting hands against various player types and in different situations.  We will assume that you will play premium hands against any player.

Let’s look at some starting hand categories and work out their pros and cons.

Suited Connectors

These hands are good for bluffing and semi-bluffing.  When you get your straight, it can be the nuts.  In addition, they can hit 2 pair. 

As straights are not always obvious, your implied odds when you hit a straight are good.  You can get paid well if you hit a straight. 

The odds of hitting getting a draw on the flop are very low.  Even if you are lucky enough to get a draw, the draw still has to complete for you to have any kind of hand. In addition, your implied odds for flushes are low.  This is because everyone slows down when the 3rd suited card hits the board.

Because of the low probability that you will get a straight or a flush wth a suited connector, suited connectors are mainly bluff hands. 

High Cards

These hands hit the flop with a high frequency compared to suited connectors and pocket pairs.  They can hit 2 pair occasionally. However, they don’t hit the nuts often.

Therefore, you have to be a good post-flop player to be able to play these hands well.

These hands hit the flop with a high frequency compared to suited connectors and pocket pairs.  They can hit 2 pair occasionally. However, they don’t hit the nuts often.   Therefore, you have to be a good post-flop player to be able to play these hands well.

What about high card hands?  These are ok.  However, when there is an overcard on the board to a NIT’s pair, he will fold his hand anyway.  It might take a double barrel.  However, you don’t actually need the high card.  In fact, if you do have a high card, it actually has a blocking effect on a card that you can bluff on appearing on the flop.  Furthermore, if you actually hit your high card and the NIT has the same high card, he will usually have the best kicker. 

Pocket Pairs

These hands hit the board with low frequency.  When you hit your set, you have close to the nuts or the actual nuts. 

Junk Hands

Junk hands hit good hands with low frequency. In addition, you can be dominated when you hit the flop weakly. 

However, like suited connectors, they can hit 2 pair.  In addition, they can be used to bluff but not semi-bluff.

We will now look at starting hands in relation to the different player types.

1. Starting Hands Against NITs

Which starting hands are good against NITs?  Because NITs are easy to bluff, you could theoretically play almost any 2 cards when you have position. 

They will fold their pocket pairs when they miss their set.  They will fold unpaired hands, such as AK and AQ, when they miss the flop.  Therefore, the only hands that, NITs are almost sure to call a bet with, are high pocket pairs.   

Suited Connectors

It is good to have outs when you are planning on bluffing.  Therefore, when you are in position, you can play suited connectors against NITs. 

High Cards

What about high card hands?  These are ok.  However, when there is an overcard on the board to a NIT’s pair, he will fold his hand anyway.  It might take a double barrel. 

However, you don’t actually need the high card.  In fact, if you do have a high card, it actually has a blocking effect on a card that you can bluff on appearing on the flop.  Furthermore, if you actually hit your high card and the NIT has the same high card, he will usually have the best kicker. 

Pocket Pairs

How about pocket pairs?  As I’ve said, because NITs are easily bluffed, you can theoretically play any 2 cards against NITs.

Pocket pairs don’t add much value.  That’s why I have put “perhaps” in the figure above. The exception is if you are up against a NIT who will stack off with top pair.  However, most NITs won’t stack off these days with top pair. 

This means that, when a NIT is willing to stack off, he will have a set as well. You want to be the player with the higher set in this situation. Therefore, be careful, if you hit a set with a low pocket pair and the NIT seems happy to stack off.

When you are up against a NIT, not that many hands get to showdown.  Therefore, you should focus on positions where you can win pots without actually going to showdown.  It is useful to have a playable hand.  However, being able to read a NIT from his betting responses is most important when it comes to winning the hand. 

2. Starting Hands Against Calling Stations

Against a calling station, you need hands that will win at showdown.  You are not going to be bluffing these players very often. 

Calling stations call pre-flop with a wide range.  This means that they will often hit the flop weakly or they will have some type of draw.  This fact should be taken into consideration when selecting starting hands.

Suited Connectors

These are hands you can use for bluffing.  Therefore, we don’t want to play these hands against calling stations or against any player who doesn’t like folding.

High Cards

We want to play high cards.  This is because when we hit a top pair, and you have the best kicker.  You can make money when villain has a pair beliw top pair and you have top pair. 

In addition, calling stations like to play drawing hands.  They will also pay a good price to chase draws.  Therefore, you can get paid when villain has a draw and you hit top pair.

Pocket Pairs

You are choosing starting hands that need to get to showdown. 

In general pocket pairs are not great hands against a single calling station.  If you miss the flop, pocket pairs are difficult to play against players who don’t like to fold.  In addition, if you hit a set on the flop, you need an opponent to have hit top pair in order to get the full value from your set. 

If you are in position against a calling station, you can play with pocket pairs.  This is because you might be able to get to showdown with your pair for one bet.  If your opponent was on a draw, you can win at showdown.  Nevertheless, you shouldn’t go out of your way to play these hands in awkward situations.   

If there are 2 or more calling stations in the pot, pocket pairs are decent hands.  There is more chance of a player hitting the flop when there are more players in the pot.  Occasionally, when you hit a set, one player has top pair and the other has a draw.  This is a great situation to win a big pot, especially if the draw hits on the river and simultaneously gives you the full house.

3. Starting Hands Against Weak-Tight Players

Against a weak-tight player, you will be bluffing.  These players enter the pot with a wide range and they will fold when they miss the flop. 

However, like calling stations, they can hang in there with top pair weak kicker and even second pair.  For example, they may have difficulty folding KK on an ace high board.  They will fold a weaker pair on an ace high board.  For example, they will probably fold 88 if the flop is A72. 

Generally, you should go for one barrel bluffs against these players.  When these players hit 2 pair or better, they like their opponent to bet their hand for them.  

In similarity to calling stations, they like to chase draws.  Therefore, double barrel bluffing can be expensive.  If they have a draw, they will call on the flop and the turn.  If you have an unpaired hand, you can end up beaten by a busted draw with a weak pair.   

Suited Connectors

These are hands you can use for bluffing.  Therefore, you can play these hands against a weak tight player.  The idea is that, you will win when villain misses the flop or hits it really weakly.  If you have a draw, you can also win by hitting your draw.

High Cards

These hands are good against weak-tight players.  As with calling stations, you get paid when you both hit top pair.  This is because you will usually have the best kicker.   You also get paid when villain is on a draw.

Pocket Pairs

You can play pocket pairs against weak-tight players.  Some of these players get attached to their top pair.  Therefore, you can win a lot of money when you hit a set.  However, as with a single calling station, you shouldn’t go out of your way to play with pocket pairs.  You can also bluff with these, although the hand itself doesn’t add much to the bluffing value because there are just 2 outs.  If this player type has missed the flop, he will fold. 

Some weak-tight players have extremely tight pre-flop raising ranges.  You should look on your HUD, if villain’s pre-flop raising range is less than 6%, you should avoid getting involved in the pot with a weak hand.

4. Starting Hands Against TAGs, LAGs and Maniacs

A lot of players get their choice of hands wrong against aggressive players.  Many players are scared of aggressive players.  However, at low stakes, aggressive players are not difficult to play against.  The first thing you need is the correct choice of starting hands to beat aggressive players. 

Suited Connectors

Players often make the mistake of trying to “trap” aggressive players by playing suited connectors.  They think that when they hit a big hand, they will win a lot of money.  This can happen.  However, if you play suited connectors, you have to get a draw on the flop to continue. 

The problem is that these player types will not give you the price to draw.  You could play your draw aggressively.  That might work against TAGs and LAGs.  However, it won’t work against maniacs.  In any case, playing draws aggressively is an advanced play.  You will be risking a large amount of your stack.  If you are not comfortable with this, you don’t need to get involved in such situations at these stakes.

The main problem with suited connectors is there is only a very small chance of getting a draw on the flop with these hands.  When you get lucky enough to get a draw on the flop, you still have a lot of work to do.  Therefore, you should generally avoid playing these hands against aggressive players.

High Cards

Against these types of players, you want to hit your hand with high frequency.  Therefore, high cards are the types of hands that you should be playing. 

Pocket Pairs

In similarity to suited connectors, players often make the mistake of trying to “trap” aggressive players by playing pocket pairs. 

The problem with pocket pairs is that you don’t hit them often enough.  You generally want to get into the pot cheaply with them.  As such, the aggressive player often has the initiative from the start of the hand. 

If you just check and fold each time you miss the board, a good player will know when you hit a strong hand.  If you try and fight back with your pocket pair post-flop, you are fighting in the dark.  A maniac probably won’t slow down when you hit a set.  Therefore, pocket pairs are good hands against maniacs but not against TAGs and LAGs.    

The Bottom Line

You will see a ton of books that say that you shouldn’t call hands such as AJ or KJ when you opponent raises.  They say KJ is a trap hand.  As a result, you have a bunch of players playing pocket pairs and trying to catch aggressive players out. 

By the time, they hit their set, they have lost a load of small pots.  Even if they catch these players out, they will be barely ahead.  The chances are, you will get 2 streets of value with your set and you will still be losing money because of all the small pots you lost.

When a TAG or a LAG raises from late position, they could have a wide range of hands.  Even a first in, middle position raise from these player-types can include pocket pairs, suited connectors and high cards.  They might even raise in these positions with an ace with a bad kicker. 

You can call middle and late position raises (but not early position raises) with AJ, AT, and KJ.  The concern is that you might be dominated.  You will be dominated sometimes.  You need to realise that if you have an ace and your opponent has an ace, the chances of an ace coming on the flop is very low.  Therefore, this situation won’t occur that often. 

There are 2 skills you need against these players.  Firstly, you need to know when to give up.  Secondly, you need to know how to extract money from these players when you hit top pair.  

The key points are:

1 Against NITs and weak-tight players, all hands can be played.

2 Against calling stations, TAGs, LAGs and maniacs, high card hands are best. 

A lot of players don’t rate top pair highly enough.  However, if you have your post-flop betting lines prepared, top pair is one of the bread and butter hands of a poker player. 

You have to understand is that every hand should be played differently against the different player types.  There is no one way to play top pair.  You should play top pair completely differently depending on whether your opponent is passive or aggressive player.  Even within the passive player that include NITs, weak tight players and calling stations, you need to have a different betting line for playing top pair post-flop against each of those.