No-Limit Hold'em is an easy game to learn, but difficult to master. Mastering it requires making good decisions from the start, and the first decision you need to make is obviously what to do preflop. Let's look at some common preflop mistakes that players make and discuss how to correct them.
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limp
There are some particular situations where limping can be correct, but generally limping puts you at a disadvantage. This is for two reasons. The first is because it is a very passive play, leaving you with only one way to win the pot, and playing well post-flop is much more difficult than playing well pre-flop. By raising, you can win the pot pre-flop, perhaps by making the other limping players fold or by winning the blinds. Additionally, if your raise is called and your hand does not hit the flop, you can make a continuation bet and still win the pot.
In other words, raising preflop allows you to maneuver your hand more easily by giving you more than one way to win the pot, whereas limping almost always requires you to hit a hand on the flop.
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Playing too loosely
Many players don't care much about the value of the hands they play preflop. It goes without saying that AA is better than KQ offsuit, which is better than T-5 suited, which is better than 7-2 offsuit. The question is, which hands should you play? Some hands are strong enough to play, while others are too weak. Of course, the issue is not when to fold AA preflop, but determining when to fold, say, AT offsuit in middle position.
If you are first to act in a pot, is this a hand you would normally fold? What about a K-8 offsuit in the cutoff? Many amateurs simply don't know which hands are strong enough to play preflop and which hands they should fold. It's crucial to have a mindset, knowing which hands you should play and which hands you should fold in each position. Playing too many unprofitable hands preflop is one of the quickest ways to go from being a winner to a loser, even if other areas of your game are solid.
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Play very tight
Just as you can play a lot of hands preflop, you can also go the other way and play a few hands. Furthermore, contrary to what many players believe, playing too tight can be just as detrimental to your results (or even worse)!
Firstly, playing too tight means that you are giving up value hands that you should be making money with. Secondly, and consequently, it means that you are probably getting less action with your premium hands. Opponents who are paying attention will notice that you are playing fewer hands and, as a result, will run away from you when you do play a hand.
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Not having a preflop plan
The mistakes on this list culminate in a more general mistake of not having a preflop plan, or having a plan that is too loosely constructed. The best way to play winning poker is to start with a strong preflop strategy: define which hands you should raise, call, or fold when someone raises before you, and so on. Think carefully about potential weaknesses in your current preflop strategy.
It’s important to note that the best time to figure this out is away from the table. Developing your strategy while playing can be expensive, especially if you’re just starting to develop your game or are making significant changes in this area. Admittedly, much of what you do preflop should follow a general plan that is easily developed away from the table. The rest – the parts of your strategy that change with the player and the playing conditions – will require spending time playing, but any adjustments you make to your preflop play should be based on a strong overall strategy.
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Varying the game
Without a well-developed preflop plan, there is a temptation to arbitrarily “mix it up.” I see a lot of players do this – they decide to do something unusual, for unknown reasons, and (predictably) they are punished for making foolish decisions.
Of course, making adjustments is important. The best players vary their play to stay balanced and to adapt to different opponents and playing conditions. However, they vary their play with a purpose in mind. You will never see a good player just call with AA preflop to mix things up. The fact is that while players may not expect you to do something, for example, only call with AA, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good play. Keeping your opponent thinking is important, but doing so shouldn’t come at the expense of playing your hands incorrectly.
This all comes down to math. To stay with our example, while you may be able to fool some opponents into believing that you could never have AA by simply calling preflop, you will never recoup the value you would have gained by simply raising or 3-betting preflop.
In conclusion
“Cheating” an opponent with a hand as strong as AA cannot be done as part of a good strategy that applies the correct raising and 3-betting frequencies. It simply isn’t profitable over a reasonable sample of hands played. You will make so much more money by raising or re-raising preflop with AA that it is impossible to recoup any of the value gained through the deception of just calling randomly.
If there are times when a play feels like a “variation” in any correct sense, it has to be because we have carefully considered more than one correct option. Either they are both “correct” because they are very close in value, or one is superior to the other because we have discovered something that might not have been obvious. In these cases, we are not doing something ordinary to be clever or deceptive; we are playing smart, well-thought-out preflop poker.
Article translated and adapted from the original: Poker Strategy With Doug Polk: Five Preflop Mistakes In No-Limit Hold'em
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