Hey everyone, Gloves here again with part 2 of my “From the Ground Up” series. As outlined in part 1, the purpose of this series is to take your poker game to the “next level” and to get you thinking about the game analytically with a true poker mindset. This is no easy task – poker is a very deep game and one could write pages on even a single hand, and even the best in the world are learning and improving everyday.

That said, everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right? In the first article, I focused on the single most important ability for any poker player to have. 

The long version of this is “to evaluate every decision you’re presented with, take into account all the information you have, and make the best action”. Or, in short “think about every spot, try not to make mistakes”. Even shorter: “Use common sense”, or even just “think!”

In part 2, we’re going to get more practical. Again we’re going to be mirroring DM Vadnais’ series, this time in talking about playable hole cards and the importance of position.

In part 1, the only “practical” advice I gave was “start with better hands than our opponents by playing relatively tight preflop”.

That was (and is) quite sound advice, but what hands should we be playing and what hands should we be folding?

> How do our opponents’ tendencies affect that?

> How does our table position affect that?

> How does action before us affect that?

Hopefully, by the end of this article, you’ll have solid answers to these questions and be on your way to really thinking like a poker player.

Understanding Hand Ranges – The most important single poker skill of all

Before I get into that, though, I’m going to define and explain a term necessary to cover poker strategy on any level above absolute beginner. This term is “hand range”.

Basically, the term “hand range” means “the range of hands it’s possible for my opponent to have”.

Let’s say your opponent is super tight and reraises you big preflop.
An example range for them to have is (QQ,KK,AA). You don’t know which of these hands they have, but you know they have one of these 3 hands, so that’s their range.

When writing a range, though, you don’t write out every possible hand in the range. The range of (QQ, KK, AA) is shortened to (QQ+), meaning any pocket pair QQ or above. Writing (KTo+) would mean any offsuit king KT or above (so KT, KJ, KQ – note not AK because the highest card is always written first).

An “o” designation means offsuit, while an “s” designation means suited (ex: K8o+, K7s+ means any offsuit king K8 or above and any suited king K7 and above).

Understanding ranges is hands down the most important SKILL a poker player has – so if you don’t understand this section, reread it, and if you still have questions, feel free to contact me – I’ll get back to you quickly. While this is only examining ranges at the most basic level, I cannot stress how important understanding the concept of a hand range is.

Now that we (hopefully!) understand the concept of a hand range, we can get to the good stuff. I think again I’m going to ask you to grab a pad and a pen and do a couple exercises. In fact, I kinda like this concept, so I might just ask you guys to jot down some stuff each week.

Of course nothing is required, but it should help you to express some of these concepts on paper. It’ll also give you something to look back on a month or two from now and say “Man, look how much I’ve improved!” and also will make for a good review companion, so I strongly encourage taking a few minutes to jot down some answers.

Pretend you’re at a 10 handed NoPayPOKER table playing against people you’ve never seen before.
> It’s your first hand at the table, so you have absolutely no reads.

> Let’s say it folds around to you and you’re on the button.

> You, the small blind, and the big blind are all deep-stacked.

> What range of hands do you open for a raise? (try to write using the range notation I just explained!)

Alright, same table. We’ve played some hands now and we know that both the small blind and big blind are very tight.
> What range of hands are we raising now?

> How about if the small blind is tight but the big blind is loose?

> And finally: How are these 3 ranges different and why?

> How are they similar and why?

Yes, I know I’m asking you to take a few minutes to really invest some thought into these situations and your reasoning behind the differences. Hopefully, though, after reading this article you’ll be able to look at your thoughts and already see a flaw in your thinking.

Or maybe you’ll see that you’re really on the right track! Then after some play, some thought, and some time, you can look at it again and see how you’ve improved your thought processes. That’s why I’m asking you to do these things – so I can help you better, and so even away from my articles you learn to think about your own game and keep on improving.

In fact, if you’re so inclined, feel free to message me (either pm me on NPP or email me at duncelanas@hotmail.com) with your answers to these questions, and I can look over what you send to offer some personal insight on your poker thinking.

Playable hole cards

Now that you’ve put some thought into the exercises (at least some of you!), it’s time to delve into the topic of playable hole cards.

When it comes to what cards we should be playing when action comes to us, there are 3 important factors to consider:

- The action which occurred before our turn to act.
- Our table position
- Our opponents’ tendencies

The first point is pretty self explanatory. If there’s been a raise, a 3bet, and a 4bet all before action has reached us, we should definitely be folding our pocket 9s even though if it folded to us we should be opening them for a raise. The general idea is that most of the times we play a hand we should be opening for a raise as opposed to calling our opponents’ opens.

As such, we should be playing tighter generally and 3betting our strong hands. I’m not going to get into specific adjustments here, just understanding that when our opponents open we need to be tighter is enough for now.

The second point is one that many beginning players don’t think about. At a 10 handed table (or a 6 handed table, 4 handed table…any size table, really), we should be opening progressively wider as we get closer to the button.

There are 2 main reasons for this.

1) First is the fact that because there are less opponents to act behind us, there’s a smaller chance of someone being dealt a playable hand and as such a better chance of everyone folding and us taking the blinds (which is very significant, actually).

2) Second is because we’ll have position on our opponents postflop.

What does this mean? Well, when we’re on the button (for example), our opponents will have to make their action before us on every street. What this means is that we get to act with more information than them at every single point in the hand.

Again, it’s hard to state how huge of an advantage this is (seriously, I wrote 2 pretty lengthy blog posts just on this topic). Basically, the fact that we get to see what our opponent chooses to do before we have to act is a huge advantage.

Maybe our opponent leads into us, showing strength, so we fold our weak hand that we would have continuation bet. Maybe our opponent checks to us, so we continuation bet with absolutely nothing and get him to fold cause he shows weakness.

In every single postflop situation, having position on your opponent will be an advantage. While your opponent has no idea what you have (beyond the fact that you elected to play it preflop), YOU know both that your opponent elected to play their hand preflop AND how they reacted to the flop.

This is such a huge advantage that in heads-up (1-on-1) play, it’s even profitable to open 80% of button hands (including trash like T4o and 85o) just because you get to play the hand in position.

So as we have better table position, our opening ranges should naturally open up.

The third (and also very important) point to consider is our opponents’ tendencies.

> If the big blind is going allin every single hand, we shouldn’t be opening wide from the button at all – because we’ll have to fold to his shove with our weaker holdings.

> If the players left to act behind us are tight, we should loosen up because we have a better shot at stealing the blinds.

If the players behind us are loose and aggressive, there are 2 adjustments we should make.
> The first is that we should should tighten up some because we’ll be 3bet a fair amount and we’re not scooping the blinds very often.
> The second is that we should play more high card hands and less suited connector type hands.

That’s because against a loose aggressive opponent, we can play a hand like KJo, flop top pair, and get it allin and be happy with our play.

However, if we have 87s, when we flop top pair and are faced with lots of aggression, when we get it in we’ll often be dominated by stronger top pairs or hands with more outs against us.

And against this type of opponent, when we miss with our 87s and cbet the flop we’re unlikely to get many folds and our hand has less equity. So high-card hands go up in value while middle connectors go down.

Ultimately, though, it’s very hard to give concrete advice in general situations. Sure, I could give ton of example ranges to play as “a certain stack depth against a certain player type in a certain position with a certain gameflow”, but it’s just not practical.

Of course, there are some hands we’ll almost always be playing (JJ+, AQ+ for example), and some hands we’ll basically never be playing (complete trash, like 52o), but for tons of suited connectors, suited one gappers, pocket pairs, and midstrength hands in general the answer to what you should play and when is “it depends on the situation”.

The great thing about NPP is that it’s a free online poker site – you can change around your ranges and see what works and what doesn’t, how you should adjust in certain spots, etc. with absolutely no monetary loss. So experiment away!

Just remember to internalize the concepts and apply them, and your experiments will lead in a good direction.

Again, generally:

- Play tighter in early position, looser in late position
- Play tighter against loose players, looser against tight players (preflop)
- Play tighter against aggressive players, looser against passive players (preflop)
- Play tighter if there has been action before you
- Almost always play your premiums, almost never play trash

I suppose I should give a couple examples to illustrate. Although they won’t be a complete guide position by position, hopefully you’ll get an idea of how to account for different villain types and a general idea of how important position is.

- Under the gun (first position) 10 handed example range: (TT+, AQo+, AJs+)
- Button range vs tight blinds: (22+, A2o+, A2s+, K6o+, K5s+, Q9o+, Q8s+, JTo, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s)
- Button range vs loose blinds: (22+, A7o+, A2s+, K8o+, K8s+, QTo+, Q9s+, JTs)
- Button range readless: (22+, A7o+, A2s+, K8o+, K7s+, Q9o+, Q9s+, JTs, T9s, 98s)

Limping – What’s it all about and when should you do it?

Now we’ll discuss the one topic left relatively uncovered thus far – limping.

When should we limp preflop? The answer is almost never.

There are, however, a couple situations where we could and should be limping.

> First is a spot where we’re against a loose passive opponent with a marginal hand. Basically, when our opponent is rarely folding to a raise, isn’t attacking our limp often, and our hand isn’t particularly strong but is strong enough to see a flop.

> Second (and much much more common, especially in free poker playmoney and microstakes games), is in what’s known as a limpede.

A limpede is basically when a whole bunch of players decide to limp preflop (limp+stampede = limpede!)

We should join in these “limpedes” when we have either suited connectors or low pocket pairs.

Basically, we’re joining the limpede because we have the chance to flop a very strong hand (in the case of suited connectors, a flush, straight, or combo draw, while with pocket pairs we’re trying to flop a set) for very cheap.

Our goal is ONLY to flop a very strong hand – if we don’t (even if we have something like second pair or a weak top pair) most of the time we’re going to be giving up and check/folding the flop.

That pretty much brings my second article to a conclusion. Remember, feel free to contact me with any questions/comments/concerns you may have (and your ranges and reasoning for the exercises I gave you – I’ll let you know if you’re on the right track!) either by commenting on the article, my blog (which I’ll update soon, I promise!) sending me a NPP pm, or emailing me at duncelanas@hotmail.com . Hope you enjoyed the read and learned something! Good luck at the tables, talk to you guys soon!

- Gloves

Check out Gloves lesson 1 in this series here Patience on steroids “Common Sense Poker”

Check out gloves personal blog here (more advanced stuff)

Check out all the pro written NoPayPOKER.com lessons on the free online poker training page

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4. Poker Free Online Instruction Guide To Aggressive Versus Passive Play Demonstrated By A Real Life Professional Game Hand
5. Free Poker Guide To What You Can Do When You’re Trapped By Better Players in Tournaments