03-15-07, LearnTexasHoldem:

Playing the blinds

Position plays a big role in poker, even in low limit. Playing out of the blinds is different since you are already in the hand some. You'll play looser here but not too loose and how loose or tight depends solely on how many people are in the hand.

If you have a hand even as weak as 79 off suit in the big blind and everyone is in (a "family pot") with a raise then you would call.

The reasoning behind this is that you are getting great odds for your money. This same approach is true across the game.

The less money out there, the better hand you have to have since you aren't getting good odds. The more money in the pot the weaker your hand has to be to play since if you do win even a small percentage of the time you'll profit.

So know that we know a little about starting hands, how do we know how loose or tight to play in a game? That's a very hard question and the better you get the more you'll be in tune with the answer.

There is no absolutes though and you will lose hands. What I'll try to explain here is how to size up a game as being a loose one that you'll get away with some lessor cards or a tight one where if you played those same hands too much you would get slaughtered.

If you sit down at a game and see lots of people in preflop, even with a raise, then it is a pretty loose game. For example if you consistently see 4/5 or more people in before the flop then it is pretty average.

If you see almost everyone in every hand and going all the way to the river then you have a really loose game.

In contrast if you see a game where about 3 people are in preflop with a lot of raising then it is a pretty tight game and you probably will want to play something else.

In very tight games you'll see one person raise and another person battle it out with them. In those games having four people in is a "family pot" while in a regular low limit game a family pot is only when everyone is in (all 9/10 players). That isn't as rare as you might imagine.

When you are first starting out and you see that the game is very loose, it wouldn't be a bad idea to still stay away from hands like 57s, etc. You would still want to play KJs, QTs, JTs.

If you can discipline yourself to only play those loose hands in the back (late position), then you would be playing ideally. Even a hand like A5s in the back is a great hand if everyone is in. So here are some general guidelines for how loose to play:

Average Game (4/5 people in the flop): play your premium pairs, small pairs, big cards and suited connectors. Very Loose Game (7+ people in the flop): play just about anything we mentioned above in the correct position. Wait for the flop to give you a really good hand or draw and then make them pay.

The key point here is to remember how loose your cards before the flop are depends on two things: your position and the amount of people in the hand before you. The more people in, the weaker your hand can be.


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