Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
A pair of queens with an ace-king-ten will be the high hand in a six-handed game as often as a pair of kings. These three odd cards better the value of your hand very little but they do reduce the possibility of other players' holding a pair of aces and kings. Even when discarding these three odd cards, their values should be remembered because they limit the chances that a player holding aces or kings will make three of a kind on the draw. If you hold Q-Q-A-K-X at the start and catch a queen on the draw, you should bet them up as if you had three aces.
As stated earlier under General Strategy the player who opens early is in a bad position because he must bet first after the draw. Therefore I suggest that the player under the gun in an eight-handed game should not open with any pair less than aces. The only exception to this ruling is when the pot is extra big and offers better than favorable odds.