ABC of Poker: Starting Hands in Early Positions

As most beginner guides, the #RKHabc series is based on ABC poker theory and its fundamental postulate: you play only solid hands, betting and raising when you're strong and folding when you're weak. Sounds obvious and self-explanatory, as long as you know your poker hand rankings, so where's the catch?

You can watch @Annie Duke's starting hand tutorial in ABC of Poker: Starting Hands

As you must already know if you're reading this article at all, 'strength' in poker is not at all about the ranking order of poker hands. What is equally - if not more - important is your position at the table relative to the Button (the last player to act post-flop).

The more players remain to act after you, the more vulnerable you are - you have less information and less pot control.

You may find slight differences among poker writers as to the 'allowed' starting hands in early position. Some may, for example, include pocket TTs in open-raise charts for UTG while others will recommend QQ+ only. But one thing they all agree on is that players in early position must be much more selective and should only play a tiny fraction of their starting hands. This, you will find, often requires total mobilization of your willpower and discipline :)

In UTG and UTG+1 (full ring) you'll be best off focusing exclusively on the premium starting hands in the top left corner of the chart!

Your rule of thumb:

In early position - UTG, UTG+1 - in a full-ring game, you will be folding more than 95% of the time pre-flop! Play tight and open raise with premium hands only (high pairs AA, KK, QQ and AKs/AKo). Do not open limp!

Some poker writers loosen up the starting hand range to include JJ and TT, as well as high suited AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and high unsuited AQ, AJ. Naturally, it all depends very much on stack sizes and on what you know about your opponents at the table.

Remember that with fewer than 9 occupied seats you are moving closer to the button and the early positions drop out. In a 6-max, the first to act pre-flop has a wider recommended starting hand range including, for example, pocket pairs down to 55s.

Related articles on #RKHabc:

ABC of Poker: Starting Hands - Ranking HeroAs the popular fun fact goes, there are more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms on Earth! How fortunate we are then that with 52 cards and 4 suits, there are only ;) 1326 possible combinations of starting hands in poker! And to make things even easier for beginners, these fall into five basic types (pairs, suited or unsuited, connected or gapped) and three broader categories in terms of post-flop potential (premium, solid, speculative).www.rankinghero.com

ABC of Poker: Position Essentials & Glossary - Ranking HeroPoker is a game of incomplete information and that is why you need to watch out for anything that can help you fill in some of the gaps. In terms of information, the first of your assets and vulnerabilities is your position at the table. Essentially, the later you are to act, the more information you will have gained about your opponents. www.rankinghero.com

Do you have a favorite video tutorial or article on starting hands? What would your own personalized chart of UTG starting hands look like?