Playing Poker Before The Flop
These days there are vast numbers of articles all over the internet that talk about how to play poker before the flop, on the flop and on the later betting streets as well. The problem here is that there are so many different views and opinions coming from so many different sources that it isn’t any wonder that many players become confused.
You will hear novices ask about “perfect pre-flop play” and what it is. Many believe that perfect play is something that can be learnt from hand charts and other such mechanical devices. This is basically illusory in nature as true “perfect” pre-flop play is something that can never ever be attained.
THE HOLY GRAIL OF POKER
This is for the simple reason that poker is a game of incomplete information so you can never know what your opponents are going to do and what their hands are. But we can take the hand charts and card dependent strategies onto a whole new playing field by having no strategy that is set in stone.
This is probably the Holy Grail as far as pre-flop play is concerned. If you can properly tap into the game conditions and dovetail your play around that then perfect pre-flop play suddenly gets a whole lot nearer to being reality. Back in the days when I used to play just one table, I could feel the game out quite well.
CHANGING POKER DYNAMICS
I knew just who was raising and how often and what types of hands they were raising with. This was years before I started using Poker Office (www.pokeroffice.com) and yet I could still dovetail my pre-flop strategy very well. It takes experience to be able to feel games out like this but you can do it if your concentration levels are high enough and you are only playing two tables at the most.
I could tell who the solid players were and whose blinds I could attack and who was likely to come back over the top of me with a re-raise. I also don’t feel that tracking software does this more accurately than a highly developed feel. Where these items really come into their own are when you are multi-tabling as you cannot feel numerous tables at the same time anyway!
In many ways, deviating your pre-flop play depending on game and player dynamics is the ultimate level that you can achieve in poker. Multiple level thinking really starts to take this on to a whole new level but you can sometimes literally own certain players when you know what they are going to do before they even do it.
Also, optimal pre-flop play is dependent on what the prevailing game dynamics are in all forms of poker and not just texas hold’em. If you are playing Pot Limit Omaha or Limit Hold’em then what you do pre-flop is still based on what your opponents are likely to do.
OLD POKER ADVICE IS STILL SOUND
The old advice in poker that you should be striving to do just the opposite of what everyone else is doing is perfectly sound. If your opponents are tight then playing tightly may not win you much money at all but opening up and playing aggressively just might.
Think of all those stolen blinds and forced laydowns that more aggressive players would have played back at. Opening up and attacking is the optimal way to play when your opponents are tight and defensive.
This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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