How to play before the flop at No Limit Holdem

Starting Hands for No Limit Holdem

No Limit Holdem is a very different game than Limit. Many principles hold true, at least to some extent, but are strongly affected by the latent implied odds. Indeed, what there is to win before the flop is often very small compared to the potential gains later in the hand.

Let’s see how this changes the preflop stategy.

The Criteria

The following starting hand criteria apply to No Limit Holdem:

• what hands you are likely to be up against, given the action up to you;
• what hand you are likely to build;
• the size of your stack and that of your opponents;
• what position you have;
• how many opponents will be in the hand;
• the style of your opponents (loose/tight, passive/aggressive, like to see a flop etc.);
• your image at this point.

Compared to Limit, the size of the stacks now play a major role, since this is what limit your potential gains, and not the fixed bet size. In fact, depending on the proportion of the early round betting amount compared to the stack sizes, a completely different strategy will be used, and the game will also take a different pace. That’s why we talk of implied odds.

The position also plays a greater role in No Limit. The positional advantage can be exploited to full extent thanks to the freedom in the choice of the betting amount; instead of a few fixed bets, position can make you win the whole pot or even your opponent’s stack - or, conversely, you can sometimes save big money if you have the position.

What You Build

This part is taken verbatim from the Limit article.

There are five main types of hands you are going to build with your starting hand:

• overpairs, with high pairs like queens or better;
• pairs, with hands like AK, K9 or 83;
• flush draws, with suited aces and suited connectors;
• straight draws, with connectors, suited or not;
• sets, with any pairs;

Some of these hands play better against few opponents, like high pairs. Against six opponents, a single pair is probably not going to be the best hand, so you want to narrow the field with these hands.

Some others want a multiway pot to get the odds to draw, and win extra bets when they complete it. These are the straight and flush draws; playing connectors is the easiest way to get one. Small pairs want a multiway pot too, since they most likely won’t win if they don’t hit their set.

Mid pairs are somewhat in-between, since they can win on their own, but can fall back on hitting a set if there are many callers.

Trash hands build a poor pair with dubious kicker, or weak flush draws.That’s why playing any hand is losing poker. Regarding the “weak” flush draw, it is better than nothing, and sometimes better than that of small suited connectors, but for the latter the flush draw is mainly an escape hatch, while the trash hand has almost nothing else to show, so this is not an emergency exit but almost its only hope from the word go.

It is therefore important to know what you build, and to make sure the situation is right to build such a hand.

Position at No Limit: A Crucial Point

As we saw, position will give you more information about your opponents, what range of hands they can possibly have, and how the hand is likely to develop. This is important preflop, to avoid unfavorable confrontations, and to make sure that you build the right type of hand for the situation.

However, there is a big difference with Limit: your gains are not limited to that many fixed bets. This means that some longshots with speculative hands, which were unprofitable in Limit, can win you pots big enough to make the play quite profitable at No Limit.

The middle pair is a typical example. Paying a small percentage of you stack (possibly calling a raise) with a mid pair to try and hit a set is fondamentally good big bet poker. While at Limit, a preflop raise or reraise halves each time your expected gain in the long term (since you pay twice or thrice as much for similar gains), at No Limit this only cuts a little bit your profits if the call remains small compared to what you can win later in the hand. There is still a maximum amount you should pay with such holdings of course, otherwise hitting the set won’t make up for all the money spent when you don’t (let alone that a set doesn’t always win). If you call for $25 preflop with deuces with a $100 stack against four opponents, you cannot win money in the long run.

Position enables you to have a much better idea about what seeing the flop will cost you. This is all the more important if you are close to the maximum amount you should pay preflop with your hand, since a raise could force you to fold.

If position is important preflop, it is even more so after the flop, especially at No Limit. This is because it is easier to push you off an average hand after the flop, when the type of your hand is defined for the most part. Many hands do not stand the pressure very well, and if they are out of position, they are very vulnerable, either after a check (showing their weakness), or after being raised. This can often get worse on the later streets, if they fail to improve. Of course, the bets and raises get bigger as they go, maximizing the pressure. You should definitely avoid putting yourself in these situations as much as you can.

What hands can become vulnerable this way? The flush and straight draws are the main ones, as well as top pair with an average kicker, or the weaker middle or bottom pair. Paying through the nose to chase with a draw out of position is very bad, since you have nothing yet, and you are far from sure that you will get paid if you complete your draw, as it may be obvious to your opponent what you are up to.

Regarding the pair, it is not a poor hand, but being outkicked (that is, playing against the same pair with a better kicker than yours) is an awful situation. If you don’t have position, your opponent will see how you play your hand before he acts, and can conclude whether you are strong or not. He will put pressure on you, forcing you to fold, or making you pay off lavishly when he has the better hand.

This means that playing hands like KT out of position is dangerous, since it will build precisely a pair (possibly not the best) without the best kicker. While in Limit Holdem, you can grind your teeth and check and call your way to the showdown, this is most often not an option in No Limit. That’s why building hands that can take the pressure is important.

Stacks Size

This is another extremely important factor at No Limit, and virtually non-existent at Limit. The bigger the stacks, the more disproportion there will be between the early betting rounds and the potential pot to win. This means players have a free hand to pick the best situations, since the blinds cost them almost nothing, and even taking a flop is a bargain.

Consequently, you can expect much stronger hands at showdown, if it gets there. This means that even top pair top kicker is rather weak at No Limit Holdem when the stacks are big: it is only a pair, and it doesn’t improve easily. What could a decent opponent bet big with? A worse pair? Come on.

Even overpairs suffer from the same problem.

Example:

A $1-$2 No Limit Holdem game, ten-handed, everybody got about $1K. You have second to act. The first player folds, and you open with a raise to $20. Two good, experienced players in late position call. The flop is:
. You bet $60, called by the first opponent, raised to $200 by the second. How do you like your hand?

When the stacks are big compared to the blinds, we say that you play “in deep money”. This is characterized by huge implied odds, often to the point that playing some trash hands with position can be correct, since you can either win a humongous pot with your miraculous flops, or use your position to force you opponents to fold, winning the pot uncontested.

Players coming from Limit poker have a hard time understanding this, since the same play with a limit structure would be terrible. The fact is that strict starting hands requirements are critical at Limit Holdem, but secondary to stack sizes and position at No Limit. Don’t use this as an excuse to play any hand, but realize that you cannot beat a No Limit game with only solid standards and basic knowledge, while this is doable at low-limit poker for instance.

This why there is no definite standards for No Limit, like there was for Limit; it depends too much on the current implied odds, which are beyond your mere cards.

Opponents’ Style

Preflop, your main concern is to know how likely the pot is going to get raised, how much it will cost to see the flop, and against whom. The more aggressive the table, the less you should call with clearly inferior hands, since you will lose too much and run the risk of hitting a bit of the flop and either not getting paid or losing to a better hand.

Try to identify who is prone to making overcalls, who folds to most re-raises, who limps with speculative hands to take a cheap flop, who raises with anything on the button, and so on. Being able to read your opponents is very important, even at this stage of the hand.

Where To Go From Here

You may feel a bit lost about what to play and what not at No Limit. The fact is, there are too many parameters to consider to come up with some recipes. Knowing the concepts that come into play and building your own experience is the best way to go. I don’t know how many times the two words “implied odds” appear in this article, but this gives you a good idea about what No Limit Holdem is all about, especially preflop.

In order to correctly play preflop, you must understand what happens in the later streets, since building a hand is not enough: you are really building a whole situation. If you are not familiar with them, you are basically reacting to what happens, instead of provoking the best situations for you.

Related Items:

• Hand Dynamics
• Starting Hands for Limit Holdem
• The Betting