Playing fixed limit Texas Holdem pre-flop

Playing from middle position

Clarification: This is how you select your starting hands and how you play them pre-flop when you are at middle position at the table.

As mentioned earlier these suggestions in particular applies to a full table with 10 players and fixed limits. Applying these rules to tables with only 5 or 6 players or less including yourself will probably slowly but surely consume your money (Faster blind rotation)

Why is middle position is better than an early position?

Your starting hands and acting depending on how the players at earlier positions have acted

Raise:

Question: Why raise with these starting hands?

Answer: As usual when you have high pairs – reduce the number of opponents. AA – JJ will also withstand a possible re-raise after you ( which will make you re-raise with AA and KK, AKs and AKo and call with QQ-JJ plus higher suited hands. High suited connectors are suitable to both a few as well as many opponents.

Call:

Question: Why call with these starting hands?

Answer: These mediocre hands might perhaps turn into something good when the flop and further cards have been dealt. The strength is often to be found when making a set, straight or flush. These have the power to knock out all of the opponents at the table. By calling you will probably get more players to join the round and thus you will get better odds when the flop gives you the cards you need.

Re-raise:

A few other questions

Why do you answer a raised pot with a raise?

Answer: Not only because you have strong hands but also because you at an early stage want to know if the player is serious. The question you ask him is: “ Have you really got AA-JJ or AKs, AKo perhaps KQs or KQo?”.

This makes it easier for you to predict the hand of your opponent. If your opponent does not raise your re-raise – well, then you normally are at an advantage. Most new players tend to over estimate their hands and select to raise bad hands like ATs, KJo etc already from an early position as they to an untrained eye look better then they are.
With an extra raise you can make the players who act after you to fold and thus get the benefit to act last in the next coming betting rounds which will give you better control over your opponent.

At low limits people are overplaying there hands many times. Keep in mind that raising preflop with the best hand is +EV for you (Expected Value) . If a bad player wish to cap the bet with crap, well then he is doing a mistake preflop. He will sometimes get lucky and get a strong hand when the flop is dealt. Even if he hits now and then, these kind of plays won't make him a winning player if he does them all the time, as he pays big preflop, reduces players in pot, and get the worst of it. But he can make you begin playing on tilt if he gets lucky against you, and that's the only thing you need to worry about. Don't let him do it.

Can I play more hands if many players at the table always join the betting rounds?

Answer: Yes. If the playing conditions indicate that most players always join the betting round you can play more suited connectors, one-gap connectors and maybe two-gap connectors as these create both straight and flush draws. It might also be possible to play more sequential cards. I do however not recommend this at the beginners’ tables as these are marginal hands that simply do not result in a much bigger win in the long run. The most important thing is that if you play these hands wrong you can lose a lot. If you read poker books dealing with somewhat higher levels you will find that there often are more hands represented in the starting hand tables. The reason for this is that the player should not be too predictable and thereby be too easy to read for the opponents.

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