Hand Selection

Recently I conducted a class on hand selection. Hand selection is very important in poker especially more inexperienced players because they can either get themselves into really tough spots or call down with a losing hand.

There for 4 key elements to deciding to play the hand or not.

1. Hand strength: This is a given. If you have premium, regardless of position, stack size blah blah, you play them no matter what. You need to know the strength of your hand. This may seem easy to most people but I have some students who think that KJ suited is a premium hand. KJ suited is NOT a premium hand. I repeat, KJ suited is NOT a premium hand. Some hands look really pretty, but they are not as good as they look. QJ, QT, KT, these hands will get many players in trouble more than good.

2. Position: Rule of thumb, the later your position, the worser cards you can play. This is relatively true because late positions offer other advantages so you are able to maneuver marginal hands. But it also depends on how many players are in the hand, pot odds and implied odds. There is no point calling one raiser without any additional value with hands like 69 suited but multiway then there is value.

3. Initial raiser image: You may be holding a nice looking hand like AT, but you have to judge your hand strength based on the initial raiser's image (callers too). If the initial raiser is a tight player, your AT may be going against a hand that dominates you. You are sometimes better off calling tight raisers with hands like 45, 57, etc. If raiser is a loose aggressive player, AT is good most of the time against his range. Instead I would avoid playing small cards.

4. Relative stack sizes: Your hand may be good to call in most spots, but you need to recognise the stack sizes of the initial raiser and relative to yours. For example, initial raiser makes it 4x but only has 14x behind. You are holding JT suited on the button. I might not even play this hand because there is not enough value for you to see the flop. Furthermore, player is likely to shove the flop regardless whether they hit or not therefore putting you in a tough spot if you missed or hit but not strong.

Good luck!