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How do you play in the early phase?

The early phase is distinguished by the blinds being still small in comparison to your and your opponents' chip stack. As a rule of thumb, you should remember this: the early phase ends when your chip stack fall under 24 big blinds.

Basically, your strategy is to only enter pots where you clearly have the best hand. In other words: no tough decisions! This means you will only enter the action with cards that will often stay or become the best hand even after the community cards are dealt, allowing you to play through the many betting rounds without too much hassle or too many headaches.

You can see the starting hand chart (SHC) for the early phase below. You will find all starting hands that are profitably playable in there, with the corresponding best way of playing them. If you follow this chart, you will automatically generate a large number of the advantageous situations we mentioned earlier.

Download all charts and overviews as printout version here (Adobe Reader PDF-Format)

Starting hands chart for the early tournament phase Hands Raises in front of you Early pos. Middle pos. Late pos. Blinds   None Raise AA, KK Exactly one Raise   More than one All-In   None Raise QQ Exactly one Raise   More than one Fold   None Raise AK Exactly one Call   More than one Fold JJ, TT None Call Raise   One or more Fold 99 to 22 None Call   One or more Fold AQ, AJ, KQ None Fold Raise   One or more Fold Special rules If there is a raise behind you, you only continue playing with AA, KK, QQ and AK and go All-In immediately. You fold all other cards. If an opponent raises more than 6 big blinds, you only continue playing with AA, KK, QQ and AK and go All-In immediately. You fold all other cards.

How to read the chart

At the left side, you see all possible starting hands listed. Any hand not on this list should not be played - it would only result in trouble.

Every card is given as a single letter or a digit. The letter comes from the card's name, like Q for a queen, for instance.

Used card designations   A   Ace   K   King   Q   Queen   J   Jack   T   Ten   9   Nine

If you're holding a potentially playable hand, your action still depends on what the players before you have done. Has someone in front of you already raised his hand or has nobody raised yet?

Therefore the second column of the chart is divided into three rows, which show the different possible situations that you might get into. Depending on whether someone has already raised before you, your recommended action can be found in the corresponding columns to the right in the third column. It will point out whether you should call, raise or fold.

Besides your cards and the action of the players in front of you, a third factor comes into play, namely your position.

In poker, position is another word for when it is your turn to act in a betting round. As the order who's turn it is in a betting round depends on who the current dealer is, the position derives from this, as well.

The positions at the poker table SB BB UTG1 UTG2 UTG3 MP1 MP2 MP3 CO BU

The two blind positions: SB and BB
The two players that pay the small and big blinds are called SB and BB respectively. Rotating clockwise, they sit behind the dealer, to his left.

The three early positions: UTG1, UTG2 and UTG3
The three players that follow the blinds when rotating clockwise find themselves in early position. They are designated as UTG1, UTG2 and UTG3, which originates from under the gun - the early positions are commonly looked upon as the worst, and figuratively speaking, you are looking into the barrel of a gun.

The three middle positions: MP1, MP2 and MP3
Next, there are three players in the middle positions.

The two late positions: CO and BU
The player in front of the dealer and the actual card dealer constitute the end of the round. They are called CO (for cut-off) and BU (for button). The latter is derived from the chip or button that marks the current dealer position.

If there are only nine players on the table, there are only two early position. For 8 players, there will even only be one early position left.

For every player that leaves the table, we leave out another position, going from the early positions to the middle positions and then to the late positions.

QUIZ

How large are your raises?

With some hands, you raise before the flop. Whenever you do this, you should follow some rules for the size of your raises.

• Your basic raise is 4 big blinds. You will always raise to this size if no one entered the hand before you.
• For every player that called the blind before you, you add another big blind on top.
• If there has been a raise in front of you, you raise to triple the amount of that raise.
• If there were several raises in front of you, you raise to triple the amount of the last raise.
• For every player that called the last raise in front of you, you add another amount equal to the size of this raise to your own raise.
• If you have to put more than half of your chips at stake for a raise, you go all-in right away.

These rules have proven their value in practice, as a raise should never be so small as to give your opponents a good price for a call. It shouldn't be too big, either, though, as to avoid only attracting opponents that have a better hand than yours.

There isn't as much calculating as there seems to be at first glance. These rules will quickly come naturally to you.

1. The big blind is 10 chips. Nobody entered the hand before you. You would then raise to 40 chips.

2. The big blind is 10 chips, but there are already two players who called. You raise to 60 chips (4 big blinds plus 1 big blind per player that called).

3. A player in front of you has raised to 40 chips. You raise, if you have the right cards, to 3 * 40 = 120 chips, triple the amount of his raise.

4. A player in front of you has raised to 40 chips, but there are already 2 players who called his raise. You raise to 3 times 40 + 2 times 40 = 200 chips, triple the amount of the previous raise plus an additional raise size per caller.

QUIZ

Examples for practice

In this case, you are in the first middle position (MP1) and have a small pair of fours. The starting hands chart tells you that you can call any pair from 99 to 22, as long as no one has raised. As this is the case here, you can call to see the flop in the hopes of hitting a set.

This is a typical situation that usually causes problems for beginners. You have an ace with a suited side-card and nobody raised before you. Couldn't you just call and take a look at what the flop brings?

The problem is that there are still players behind you that could raise. But the hands you can hit on the flop create an even bigger threat. In case you hit a pair of fours, it's not worth much. If you hit a pair of aces, however, you are in for trouble as soon as somebody gives you action. Your pair isn't really worth much here, due to your kicker.

You will only rarely hit your flush. It's much more likely that the flop brings only two additional hearts, leaving you with one missing - you would then have a so-called flush draw. You might hit your flush on the turn or river, but you will often have to invest a lot of chips to get there, violating your number 1 rule: don't risk chips unnecessarily!

You have no reason at all to waste chips on a speculative hand. Seeing as how you have hardly any chance of getting into a profitable situation with this A4 suited on the flop, you should already have folded. You can easily realize this is the correct course of action, as the hand is not even included in the starting hands chart.

A pair of kings is always a beautiful sight. You probably already know this yourself, but if needed, the starting hand chart also tells you that the best course of action is to get as many chips into the pot before the flop as possible. This means you should raise here. Now the question remains: how much?

The big blind is 20 chips. 2 players called. Your raise, if someone else has already called, amounts to 4 big blinds plus an additional big blind per player that entered the hand. All in all, this equates to 6 big blinds or 120 chips, in this situation.