Some Holdem Hands to Play in Early Position

The best way to play in early position is to immediately have premium hands at the start. We may observe some opinions on the rigorous necessities to be in early position, but that's for professional play. We're talking of low stakes here.

What we want in early position are holdem hands like pair of aces, face cards, tens, or ace or any face card. If the players are slow then we may take risks with A-10 or 9-9, or even 8-8 and even win. If we have high pairs we also should place a raise so that our hand may somehow compete in multi-way pots and stave off our bad position. So for AA, which is a known powerful hand, advantages are lost if it plays against a king-queen, jack-10, 606, or 8-8.

Always raise an AK or AQ hand because our case is that often we find ourselves dealing with K-Q or Q-J, and the opponent lags behind. Our advantage here is reason enough for the raise. More so if there's just a lone challenger in the hand, and the flop has 7, 4, and 2. There's a possibility that we still have something strong. When we see Holdem hands like 10-10 or 8-8, don't bother to raise. With the former, it is possible for an overcard to flop.

Hence, should we limp to the pot and the flop reveals something unhelpful to us, we'd rather fold and save a lot of money. If the flop comes up with something substantial then bet big, something equal to the pot, and settle the cards out. However, if our raise came first before the bad outcome of the flop, someone is bound to have us beat, more so that we have to act first. If our hand had been an ace and a jack, we'd be better off limping than raising—only pair hands can stand something like a king and a jack, and our hand is not a pair hand. The only recourse here is to hit the flop right for the pot—if the flop is something we need , like jack, 4, and 2. If it something substantial, then we bet high.

Holdem hands played in early position should be premium starting hands. However, we have another option of good but not so strong hands, provided there are slow players to play with. Knowing what playing hand to continue with in the poker situations emerging while we are in early position is critical.