What Percentage Of Poker Starting Hands Should I Play?

A common question amongst beginner poker players is how tight or how loose should I play? And specifically, what percentage of hands should I play before the flop? This is a good question, however the answer to this is rather complex because poker is a constantly changing game where your decisions should be adjusted based on your opponents actions and tendencies.

Its also worth noting that there are no cut and dry answers, experienced players will be better at playing postflop so will be able to play more hands, I however, recommend that beginner poker players play a tighter style. The reason for this is because beginner poker players will have less postflop experience, this could lead them to making costly mistakes that experienced players would not make.

There are however a few generalities and guidelines you may want to follow when your starting out. Below I will outline some basic information:

Full ring cash games

In 9 or 10 handed cash games you should be playing below 20 percent of hands. A tight player could be playing as low as 10 percent of hands preflop and could be a winning player at low stakes. For the most part when you play a hand you should be raising preflop, you should never open limp and if you are calling preflop you should know WHY your doing it.

6 handed cash games

Because the first few seats are stripped out in a 6-max cash game you should be playing slightly looser overall. I would play roughly the same in a 6 handed cash game as in a 9 handed cash game, I just simply imagine that the first 3 players folded before me. You should be raising fewer hands from under the gun and more hands from the cuttoff and button. The reason is simple, you will act last postflop. Position is of great importance in all forms of poker. Position position position!

MTT tournaments

Tournaments I will start out playing very tight in the early stages because the blinds are worth little compared to my starting stack. I may play around 10-15% of hands in this period. As the blinds go up relative to my stack they become worth stealing and I will play more hands overall from late position. Also the types of hands that are valuable change throughout the tournament, with shallow stacks high unpaired hands and medium/big pairs go up in value. Suited connectors, small suited aces and small pairs go down in value. The reason is because these hands are implied odds hands and do much better with a larger pot to stack ratio. IE there more valuable playing deepstacked instead of short stacked.

Sit N Go tournaments

Much the same as MTT tournament, I will play very few hands at the start because the blinds are not worth winning. When the blinds represent a sizable portion of my stack I will start playing an allin or fold strategy where I shove allin to win the blinds. Because of ICM calculations (independent chip modelling) +chip EV situations can become -EV situations around the bubble. In basic, what this means is that on the bubble you don’t want to be taking flips or calling off your stack as a marginal equity favourite, you want your opponents to be doing it. The reason for this is because 4th place gets nothing and 3rd place is in the money. If your going to call an opponents allin raise you need to be way ahead of there shoving range in order to negate the risk of coming in 4th.