Limping-in Bad Hands

Playing your two down cards CORRECTLY is the most important part of Hold ‘em, pre-flop. Just by looking at those 2 cards, you can get a pretty good idea of how good your chances are of winning that hand. No flop, no turn, no river.

All that the other cards do is change your chances, for better, or for worse. In this section, I am going to reveal the CORRECT way to play the top hands, and what hands you want to throw to the muck.

In the chart above, you see hands in “groups” that were originally set forth by S&M and restructured more recently for a college computer science thesis. These groups are important. It sure makes talking about the hands a lot easier. And so we begin.

Any dummy can tell you that AA is the best hand to play and 72os is the worst. But, what if 772 flops? How do you like your aces now? Granted, if another ace comes on the turn or the river, you beat old 72’s full house. It could happen. The more important question you should ask yourself is, “Why did I let someone with 72 stay in the hand?”

In Hold’em, the players are allowed to raise pre-flop. Here is where the strategy starts. You see your two down cards, and know, generally, how strong they are. This is one determining factor in how you will play the hand.

The second is your POSITION at the table. It is a LOT easier to play from the button, or close to it in late position, because you will already know how everyone else has bet.

The third is the cost of the blinds. There are some definite guidelines for playing each hand, and I will discuss those here.

In an SNG game everyone starts with the same amount of chips. Generally, this is 800 or 1000. The blinds usually start at 10/15, and go up to 15/30 next after 10 hands or 15 minutes. These are the low blinds. When the blind is low, it encourages you to limp-in more.

I would say to limp-in with about everything, if you can, when the blind is at 15. You never know what you are going to catch, and if nobody ever raises behind you, you will spend a grand total of 150 chips to see 10 flops. Even if you never catch anything, you are still only down to 650 chips and can tighten it down from there. So the blind cost should be a major determination of how often you attempt to limp-in.

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