While play on the flop is often considered the most important skill to have as a tournament poker player, it is proper pre-flop play that will do the most to contribute to a poker player's success. What you do pre-flop will set up and define the rest of the hand. It is where you get the initial information about the strength of your opponent's hand and where you give your opponent information about the strength of your hand. Additionally, it is where you set up your post-flop plays, either in the form of deception by disguising the strength of your hand or bluffing by representing strength you do not have. This chapter is going to focus solely on pre-flop play and the various considerations you need to take into account when playing a hand pre-flop.
The various concepts we will discuss include the following:
- The Importance of Position
- Hand Selection
- Hand Selection Part II
- Betting
- Raising
- The Gap Concept
- Special Plays and Moves
As with the table dynamics section, there will be assignments that force you to test out a concept. These assignments will often take you out of your comfort zone. What I ask of you when you are completing these assignments is to keep an open mind, and to complete the tasks assigned. It is crucial when doing these assignments, however, to ask questions about what is working and what is not working. This is where your learning will happen. When you are able to determine that a particular concept is successful, figuring out why it is successful will give you the ideas you need to implement the concept into your game. The same can be said for a concept that fails miserably. Learning why a strategy does not work will help you avoid making mistakes and at the same time will help you learn to take advantage of this mistake being made by your opponent's.
Up next, we'll talk about the importance of position. Here's a clue. It's REALLY important.