Expanding Your Openers.

[Randy C]

For beginner player's, I often suggest that they stick to the following starting hands only:

Early position: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT and AKs;

Middle position: All of early pole risers plus: 99, 88, 77, AQs, AJs, AKos and ATs;

Late Position: All of early and mid pole risers including: 66, 55, 44. 33, 22, AQos, AJos, ATos, KQs, KJs, KTs.

The above hands represent those cards that I would reccomend a beginner use. However, one thing missing are suited and non-suited connector's which I feel a more advanced person should attempt to add to a player's opening hands repotoire for sure.

For the longest time, I stuck to only the above outlined hands as starters and realized shortly thereafter that I was compltely missing out on some major hands that I could be capitalizing on. Suited and unsuited connectors are a HUGE part of Texas Hold Em, and any game of poker really. There is one very important consideration when including suited and either non or semi suited connectors to your arsenal. You MUST be able to calculate hand odds, because it is crucial that you only stay on a potential hand if you are getting the proper odds.

Here is an example of each of the types of hands I have discussed above:

Suited connectors: 7 8 diamonds;

non suited connectors: 7 diamonds and 8 clubs;

semi suited connectors: 7 9 diamonds;

semi non suited connectors: 7 diamond and 9 of clubs.

I wish you good luck when including these types of hands to your arsenal. Please read the post section on pot odds for help adjusting to these hands.,

All In,

Randy C~

[tbone313]

Randy, Nice to see ya back...I hope they feel that they should go ahead and do your back operation now. You should not have to live with pain as long as you have.

These expanded openers do you use them in late position only or in middle position with suited connectors. Some people play suited connectors 9T and up in middle position. Some say JTs is the best drawing hand in poker...I don't like raising with it but if you do hit you have a good percentage to win the hand.

TBone

[Randy C]

For the record...I NEVER play a mid suited connector from early pole unless I am doing so to give my opponents a different look from me. I personally use suited connectors from mid pole to late pole and it generally depends on the amount of players at the respective table. At a ten person table, I stay away from semi suited connector's altogether and will only play them from late pole with less than 6 players.

Suited connector's such as KQs and QJs I'll play from mid to late pole with 10 players and will go as low as 78s from late pole with 6 or less players and also dependent upon the style of the remaining opponents at the table. If there is 2 or more tight aggressive players, I'll open those suited connectors wide open, but in contrast will NOT play them against loose aggressive players who have yet to act, because I have found in many case they will make the play very costly...and it gets very expensive!

In a nutshell, like any hand, a modicum of caution and a general use of common sense will always help. The great thing about these hands is that they can pay off in a very big way if you hit them. But, as you pointed out, these are not raising hands and even more than that, they should not stand a raise either in my opinion. The best case scenario for these hands are just a general limp in bet pre flop.

Thanks for the well wishes Tony!

All In,

Randy C~