I’ve known some poker players who get trapped in the idea of playing every suited hand, ace, or pair of connectors they have. Needless to say, it doesn’t quite work out the way they expect. Out of all the concepts that can assist a poker player in the beginning, it is learning to play fewer hands that’s most important.
I look at it this way: In a normal game of Texas Hold’em there are about 169 different hands you can start off with, and that’s not including different suits. Basically this means that there are like 100 different starting hands to absolutely keep far away from. The majority of the time you don’t even want to bother playing what is left over.
If you’re holding AA-JJ or AK, you’re going to need to get lots of money in the pot pre-flop. When you’re better at reading hands you might find it better to not play QQ, JJ, and AQ when raises have already been made before you. TT, 99, AQ-A10, KQ-KJ, and QJ are some other strong hands to play. Also keep in mind that the non-paired hands are high quality when they’re suited.
After taking a closer look at the hands that have been mentioned, only 15 of them can be labeled as true quality starting hands. Some good advice for beginner players is to steer clear of playing any hand that falls outside of this range. In other words, you should fold about 90% of the time.
As a beginner you should definitely stick to the previously mentioned starting hands until you’re really confident in your reading abilities, and also until you’ve got more experience under your belt. You’ll become a tight player and you will lessen your losses at the same time. When you’re more experienced, you’ll see the number of hands you play grow and become more aggressive as well.
