Limit Hold’em Poker School - Part 2

There is an old saying in poker, what you sow is what you reap. This piece of wisdom applies to poker perfectly. If you don’t play the right hands in the right situations then you are going to be in trouble. This applies equally to both ends of the spectrum of course. If you fail to be aggressive with the correct and proper frequency in heads up and short handed situations then you will find yourself getting blinded away at that form of poker as well.

In this article I want to discuss play before the flop in early position in low-stakes limit games in a full-ring game setting. This is actually one of the simplest situations in limit play as you are essentially only playing a small number of hands because of your positional inferiority.

As you move up through the levels then there will obviously be a greater need for deception. But at the lower stakes limit games up to and including $2-$4 games then straight forward play will be best and the playing of a really narrow range will be optimal in most games that you encounter.

So I would advise most players at these levels to only raise with AA,KK,QQ, JJ, TT, AK, AK, AQ, AQ and AJ. This range may seem overly tight to many people but it is designed purely to keep you out of trouble. As you gain experience then you can add some extra hands like smaller pairs to the mix based on how the table is playing. You may also want to add smaller suited aces as well if the game is both loose and passive.

Other hands like AJ and KQ and even KQ can also be added to the mix as well in situations where the games are very tight and raises get an awful lot of respect. But do be very careful in early position in full-ring limit hold’em as tight is almost definitely right in this situation.

Do remember that one of the primary flaws in the games of many players at this form of poker is simply playing too many hands. If you are multi-tabling then this shouldn’t be a problem if your desire to get into action is a recipe to get you into trouble.

Quite often hands that do not include an ace or a pair are too weak to win a showdown in full-ring play and this was why I mentioned earlier about being very selective with hands like KQs and KQ. Sure they may look pretty and they may look strong but you will need to make a pair to win and that takes the edge off their value in early position.