If a poker room has more than one game of the same limit, it’s worth your time to compare the two games and decide which one you’d rather play in. An intelligent decision here requires that you first gather a little information. Take some time to watch all the games that you’re considering. You’re mainly looking to answer two questions:

1. How many players, on average, enter the pot to see the flop each hand?

2. How often does someone raise before the flop?

Watching a round or two ought to give you enough to go on.

A poker game may be classified from very tight to very loose, depending on how many players see the flop. If you see a game where there are only two or three players playing every hand in a full game, you know it’s a very tight game. Alternatively, if everybody calls to see the flop every time, you’re watching a very loose game.

How much pre-flop raising there is determines whether the game is passive, aggressive, or somewhere in between. You know your personality type. Do you prefer a safer, less-action game with small pots? Or do you crave the thrill of a high-action, risky game with lots of players and big pots? Knowing how many players are playing each hand and how much raising they’re doing will help you pick the game that’s best for you. casinos

There’s one other factor to consider when choosing a table: do you recognize any bad players in that game? Remember, your profit in this game comes from the mistakes your opponents make. You don’t have to be the best player in the game. Usually, the only thing you need is not to be the worst player in the game. Playing against just one or two bad players is all you need to show a profit in the long run.

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Of all the things that a hold 'em player can do to improve his hourly rate, one of the easiest is to give some thought to which game to play in and which seat to take at that table. Picking the right seat in the right game for you can actually mean the difference between winning and losing for that playing session.

Poker Room Selection
If you're lucky enough to have more than one poker room or casino that you can play in frequently, you should take the time to consider which one may be the most profitable for you. Some differences between poker rooms are:

1. Distance from your home. Is the poker room so far away that the extra driving time, both to and from the game, substantially cuts into your playing time? You may decide that the extra time is not worth it and choose to play in a poker room closer to your house.

2. Variety and limits of games offered. The more games they offer that you like, the better for you. When you arrive to play at a room with many games you like, there's a good chance you can get in the game you want sooner. If you do have to wait, there's also a good chance you can play your second choice game while you're moving up the list for the game you prefer.

Often, when there are more than two poker rooms in a city, one of the poker room managers will decide that he wants to differentiate his poker room by spreading games that are not offered in the other poker rooms. If you like to play very high limit or an unusual game like Pineapple hold 'em, look around, because there might be a room for you.

3. Jackpots. Some poker rooms don't have a bad beat jackpot. Among those that do, the requirements to hit the jackpot vary. The jackpot may be very easy or very difficult to hit, depending on the rules. The rules determine the odds that the jackpot will be hit, which in turn determine how often there will be a jackpot payout (and thus how big the payouts will be). I've played in poker rooms where the jackpot was so easy to hit that it never got bigger than a few thousand dollars and was hit once or more every week.

I've also played in poker rooms where the jackpot requirements were exceedingly high. I played in one room where the requirement was that four-of-a-kind must lose to a higher four-of-a-kind, both hole cards in both players' hands must play, and they must beat the board. The jackpot in that poker room was more than $100,000, and it had not been hit in more than three years when it finally was hit. We'll discuss jackpots further in a later chapter.

4. Comps. Some poker rooms will give you a free meal if you play for three hours or more. The Ameristar Casino poker room in Kansas City, where I currently play, offers you credit toward any of the casino restaurants for each hour you play. If those sort of comps appeal to you, you may want to consider which ones a casino offers when choosing your poker room.

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Assignment #6
Recall which hands you voluntarily entered the pot with from Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the previous chapter. Now compare that list to the new list you learned in this chapter. Determine which hands are on the new list and not on the old list. Write these new, additional hands on a piece of paper and take it with you the next time you play in your usual hold 'em game.

Whenever you play one of the new hands, try to keep track of how much money you invest in the hand, and how much of the pot is profit when you win a hand. For example, if you win a $50 pot, but $12 of it was your money to begin with, count only the $38 difference as profit. If you do this long enough to get a large sample, you'll see that some of these hands will be winners and, of course, some will be losers. You can then use this list you've created to further refine your list of starting hands. If you like, you can stop playing the hands with which you often lose.

Between the groups of starting hands mentioned in the previous chapter and your new, refined list of starting hands from this chapter, you should have settled into a pre-flop style of play that suits you very well. Good luck.

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There's another move you can make with AK before the flop that I consider to be an expert play: throw the hand away if you have to call three or four bets cold with it. Surprised? It's only an ace and a king, and you're going to miss the flop three out of four times anyway. When you do hit the flop, you'll usually have only a pair of aces or kings.

Meanwhile, what do you think the raise and reraise ahead of you before the flop meant? One of the raisers probably has pocket aces or kings. If that's true, you'll win this hand only about 3% of the time, and you'll have to play all the way to the river to do so. This situation doesn't occur that often, but it's worth mentioning because you can lose a lot of money if you're not aware of it.

AQ, AJ, AlO – Just like when these hands are suited, you have to be aware of the gaps between your cards. Nonetheless, these are good hands, especially when played against just a few opponents. If you hold AlO, you will have the best hand before the flop only about 60% of the time, so you should usually see the flop as cheaply as possible.
KQ, KJ, KIO, QJ, QIO, JIO – With these hands, limp in to see the flop if you can. If it is raised or reraised, you'll have to use your poker sense to figure out if you're beat before the flop. If you hold JIO, odds are only 50-50 that you have the best hand before the flop (that no other player in the game holds AA, KK, QQ JJ, 1010, AK, AQ, AJ, AlO, KQ, KJ, KIO, QJ, QIO or JIO suited).

These aren't the only hands you'll ever play in hold 'em. You're going to be in the blinds about 20% of the time, and most of the hands you get in the blinds (and will have to play) will be garbage. I'll cover those hands in a later post.

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KQs – This hand is almost as good as AK suited, but look out for an ace on the flop. One out of three times that you make a flush with this hand, the ace of your suit will be on the board. I often don't mind getting an ace on the flop, because if a jack or 10 comes with it, I have the nut straight-draw. It traps anyone holding an ace if you make the straight.

KJs, KlOs – With these hands, you'd rather pair the jack and 10, because a pair of 10s with a king kicker is a better hand than a pair of kings with a 10 kicker (given that most hands will come down to a contest of kickers, and whatever you pair on the board might also pair your opponents' hands). Until you see the flop, you should usually play these hands as if they weren't suited, unless you're raising to steal the blinds.

QJs, QlOs, JlOs – These hands do best when played against a large field or against a single opponent. If you make a straight with one of these hands, it will usually be the nut straight. You'd therefore like to have all the other players putting money into this pot that you're going to win. If you have one of these hands and you flop only top pair, then you'd like to play the hand against only one player, where you have the best chance of winning the hand.

AK – Popular poker wisdom says to raise before the flop with this hand, but my years of experience at the table and on the computer have convinced me that you should usually just limp in. The exceptions are if you're in late position and can raise in an attempt to steal the blinds, or if the game is short-handed and you can raise to knock players out. You won't flop another ace or king about 75% of the time.

If you raise before the flop and then miss, you'll often be in a position where you really don't know how to play on the flop. I recommend you think carefully about raising before the flop and don't do that to yourself if you're a beginning player. You should, however, occasionally raise with AK in late position, just as you would with pocket queens or jacks. It'll help you throw off your more observant opponents. If you get a good flop, great! You'll have gotten in an extra bet with a winning hand.

If you miss, you'll still find that the other players will often check to you, since you raised before the flop. You can surprise them by checking also and seeing the turn card for free. Sometimes they will even check around to you again, assuming that now you'll bet, since you showed strength before the flop, and the bets have doubled. You can check again and see the river card-and therefore the entire hand-for free. Do you see how one little raise before the flop set up all these advantages?

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2. Suited Aces
AKs – I play this hand before the flop about the same way I play pocket aces, kings or queens. You will flop an ace, a king, a straight, a straight-draw, a flush or a four-flush about 50% of the time. With odds like that, I like to have as many players in as possible with as many raises as we can get in before the flop.

AQs, AJs, AlOs – These hands play similarly to AKs, except you have to worry about the gap between the cards. With AQs, beware of a king on the flop with no ace. With AJs, watch out for a king or a queen on the flop with no ace. With AlOs, a king, queen, or jack with no ace (unless, of course, it's all three) causes you concern if there's any action after the flop. The main strength of these hands is that they play very well when your opponents also have an ace with weaker kickers. You make a lot of money from players who are unlucky and have the same flush draw as you do.

A9s down to A2s – Until I see the flop, I play these hands as if they weren't suited for two good reasons:

1. If you flop an ace, your kicker is usually no good unless you make two pair with it.
2. When you have two suited cards, you'll end up without a flush about 95% of the time.
So, most of the time, you'll be stuck with the strength of your non-ace card to help win the pot, and low cards aren't usually very helpful.

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Most people today misunderstand poker. Let's be frank: most people know poker from the low-stakes games they now play (or grew up playing) with their family and friends. In these low-stakes home games, luck often plays a much bigger role than skill.

The money to be gained or lost in a home tends to mean next to nothing, and everyone at the table plays almost every hand to the end. The dealer's choice games are often nonstandard, even bizarre variations (often fun) where, for example, deuces, black kings, or one-eyed jacks (or all of them) are wild. In this type of poker game, people just put their money in the middle (in the "pot") and hope to make the best hand. Often, there doesn't seem to be much strategy or thought involved. When the evening winds up, everyone seems to agree that "Johnny sure was hot tonight!" You don't hear anyone saying, "Boy, did Johnny play great tonight. I sure am afraid of him at the poker table."

One reason why luck has such a big role in home-style poker games is that many of the skills we use in pro-style games just don't come into play in a home game. For example, three of the more important skills that we use are being patient in determining which starting hands to play, bluffing, and reading people. Patience, like discipline, is a virtue in many areas of life, and poker is no exception. It is in the nature of professional or tough high-stakes poker games that it is mathematically correct to fold a lot of hands right away. If you are playing too many hands (which equates to too many bad hands) in a tough poker game, you will often find yourself "drawing mighty thin," that is, trying to win by catching particular cards that are in short supply.

The plain fact is that if you play too many hands in a pro-level poker game, you just cannot win, certainly not in the long run and probably not even on just one given night, no matter how lucky you are. But if you're playing a lot of hands in a home poker game, you may be in good shape anyway, because the sheer size of the pot will wind up offering you odds sufficient to draw to an inside straight (add a nine, for example, to your 7-8-10-J hand) or another "unlikely to hit" hand. You'll usually lose, but when you do manage to hit the card you need, you're going to win a huge pot.

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