Small Ball Poker Starting Hands

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Small ball poker starting hands signals

In small ball poker, you’ll need to widen your starting hand requirements beyond pocket pairs and A-K. Here’s how to do it. This may surprise you: In deep-stack tournaments, ace and paint hands like A-J, A-10, K-Q, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10 and J-10 are significantly stronger when they are suited. Stay tuned as I’ll cover additional small ball starting hands in upcoming columns including aces and paint, ace-rag suited, king-rag and queen-rag suited, suited connectors and trash hands. Visit shop.cardsharkmedia.com for more information about Daniel Negreanu’s newest book, Power Hold’em Strategy, from Cardoza Publishing.

Basic Starting Hands - Texas Hold'em

“What hands you play in Hold'em is as much about your position at the table as it is the hands yourself.

Small Ball Poker Starting Hands Svg

Here's a useful downloadable chart explaining hand rankings and what starting hands you should play. Click to download.

BallStartingSmall ball poker starting hands ball

Small Ball Poker Starting Hands

9-9, for example, is a good raising hand in late position if no-one has raised the pot beforehand, but in early position (the small or big blind) you can find yourself in trouble if you're first to act after the flop.

The first thing to do is group starting hands together: Premium, Semi-Premium and Marginal.

Premium hands are things like A-A and K-K. With these hands you'll be raising and re-raising, in every position at the table.

Small Ball Poker Starting Hands Play

Next, Semi-Premium hands are ones like A-K, Q-Q, J-J, 10-10 and K-Qs. With these you should raise in every position, and re-raise with them in late position only. A-K is OK to just call a raise with in early position, as if you're first to act you can comfortably check-call on a low flop, or bet out if you've hit top-pair. Remember, A-K is only 'ace-high', i.e. it has great value only if you make a pair with it.

Small Ball Poker Starting Hands Reaching

Next, Marginal hands are a bigger group of cards. In this group you can put 9-9, J-10s, 10-9s, A-10s, A-Js, K-Js. Raise in late position only in an unraised pot and call in early position if you have value.