Do you think beginners can only play with good hands or should play with any two too?

[Erik moraes]

Always good hands?

 

[MattRyder]

Most of us should be looking for "better" hands given all the other factors at play in the moment. Unfortunately "good" hands may never come, so waiting for them may be a fools errand.

I've seen guys pull out from way behind with both good hands and mediocre hands. 72o crushes AA when the flop comes 72x.

 

[BelFish]

I play heads-ups. Sometimes a novice sits down and calls on the river without any combination at all (High card), moreover, on a dangerous board. And it happens when you play 7 Card Stud too - you have the highest pair or even thrips among open cards, you bet on the last street, and the person still answers with garbage ))))

 

[Misaki]

begginers should at least read, watch some informations about playing hands from different positions and how to play them and then just play at tables based on what they learnt. Playing any2 in every scenario is just a bad idea, unless you want to have fun and you don't care about money. We need that kind of players at the tables. So welcome

 

[jadaminato]

I think it depends on how beginner you are. But basically you should play hands that you feel comfortable with. If you are able to read the flop and your opponents then go ahead, expand your range. But if not then limit yourself to hands that they won't complicate you too much, at least until you gain more experience.

 

[kowrip]

For a beginner, it's best to be tight with his/her starting hand range. It takes very good post-flop skills to play weak starting hands successfully. A more experienced player will have much better awareness of the various post-flop scenarios than a beginner and will also be much better and making reads. Obviously, the range can't be too tight. It should be a good mix of premium hands, strong hands and some speculative ones.

 

[Jack Reacher]

Nope.Begginers also should practice bluffing at the same time.

 

[YKCaiTLH1314]

In my opinion, beginner should go through;
ALL kinds of play,
ALL ups and downs,
Experience winning and losing,
Broke,
Tilt,
Only when you have been there done that, then you will be better and then the best of yourself.
Took me some time to control tilt and emotion, and recently i am experiencing this first bust of my account.
Desperate time desperate measure. Control oneself not to deposit and try to grow back BR. Not easy but 'do-able'

 

[tame4g]

Playing any 2 is not a good idea unless you know what you're doing and pot odds warrant a call in say, a BB defense situation (not exactly beginner stuff). Playing bad hands like A7o can result in you getting trapped post-flop if you hit your pair with a poor kicker. It's easy as a beginner (heck, I still do it sometimes) to overvalue top pair and not even consider your kicker and lose big. If you value hand quality over quantity, you'll be able to avoid those situations much more frequently.

 

[Poker_Mike]

Always good hands?

Always good hands for beginners.

It makes it easier to know where you are at relative to your opponents.

If you are playing any two then you will almost always have some kind of a draw and lose a lot of chips.

Try both ways and you will see the difference quickly.

Good luck !

 

[pentazepam]

You should never call with the absolute bottom of you range - like 72o, 24o (the lowest unsuited cards). Except for some tournament situations when you have so few chips that you get odds to call all-in with any to cards:

If you opponent over-folds some ridiculous percent you can steal the blinds with any two.

But throwing away the absolute worst hands is almost never a mistake no matter how good you are.

Usually you have 3 advantages in poker games:

1. Skill

2. Cards

3. Position

Even if you have 1 and 3 in a hand 2 still matters (especially with total garbage).

The less skillful you are the more you should try to play mostly good cards and in position to have a chance against better players.

So nitting it up as a beginner is easier and often better (being a nit in HU is very different from being a nit in full ring).

But tight is right if you are a beginner in most cases.

 

[rj_montana]

In my experience, the more hands you play, the more you expose yourself to "bad" beats...

 

[thetick33]

i have moneyed out on over 60 online sites in 15 years... Honestly I dont bluff often and my range is pretty solid to tight.... gut is important though also...last night 150 people supposably very good field of players.... i took out final table primarily then never gave opponent much but this backfired...played him maybe 4-5 minutes heads up.... shoved 55 he called 64 offsuit he hit a set..... shoved king 7 spades he called with 10-2 offsuit river two he took first. I honestly think he thought I was superior player so much so that he gave up just shoved or called whatever shove ... id have tossed both those hands for sure.... blinds were 200k chips total was 11milly.... i like players playing that way honestly I am gonna win in those spots way more often.... i play online like i do live.... is a range if i get called 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% of time I can legit take a call whether get beat or not I got great starters at the very least... the one thing i can tell you advice was given.... you cannot win a tournament in first hour... or on first day etc.. you will have your shots imho....

 

[Katie Dozier]

Aside from some of the most fundamental “bluffs” such as making frequent continuation bets, I consider bluffing to be an advanced skill in poker whereas value betting is a totally necessary skill to being a winning player.

I think the problem with working on bluffing (ie what most people think of as truely bluffing, not semi-bluffing or c-betting) is that it can easily confuse the more new player. In my experience it is very possible to win at higher stakes than one would imagine without incorporating stone cold bluffing, but impossible to win at any stakes without doing at least a reasonable job getting value from our good made hands.

Therefore, to me this is kind of a case of the old cliche, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” A perfect poker balances his range (when appropriate/facing “thinking” players) and makes some occasional, very calculated stone bluffs, but you can still be a good poker player without that at most levels.

My advice for beginners is to place a tremendous focus on solid hand selection, ranging your opponents, and how much value to seek with your made hands. Then look at the lighter forms of bluffing, as c-betting is the more important “bluff” imo, followed closely by semi-bluffing/aggressively playing your draws. Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, big old bluffs are not nearly as important to being a great poker players as the long list of fundamentals that we should study first.

Hope this helps and best of luck! [emoji4]

 

[619Leafs]

Beginners should try to start off playing big starting hands but also understand that to become a better player, you have to widen your hand ranges as to not be predictable.

 

[shinmenkami]

A absolute begginer should play premium hands and not be afraid of overbetting when they have the best hand, specially against oponents they dont wanna take out to dance

 

[CheezeWiz]

Katie Said It So Well...

I mean, I am no where near her caliber... but I really liked her advice...

The only thing I would add for a newbie looking to experiment with bluffing is that if you are in position, and you have a decent enough chip stack to afford it, and no one seems to be showing interest in the pot, try a small bet, min bet or 1/3 of pot max. If you get re-raised big, then just let it go, no significant damage done... but I think you will be chip positive on this play, especially if you have a tight table image.

Small bluff bets can keep you in the game until you get "the goods" if you are playing tight, like a new player should, in my opinion.

Best of Luck at The Tables All,

CheezeWiz

 

[kanycta99]

The new player has to play, play, play. And the theory is a must. The range of hands for a new player should not be large.

 

[Geksan_87]

If a beginner is playing cash, then of course it is better to start with good cards, but if he wants to learn how to read opponents, then it is definitely necessary to play with different hands, the more hands you play the more you will learn about your opponents

 

[Phoenix Wright]

Just reasoning through this, I think a beginner should probably begin with a tighter strategy and maybe loosen up or experiment to find their own play-style ONLY after they've gotten a good feel for the game. Pros like Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan can play all sorts of objectively trash hands because they are thinking on many levels, have exceptional hand reading ability and know when to get away from their hand. Even then, pros sometimes get caught in situations they put themselves into.

Here is an example: Say we hold Kh3d and play it. Maybe we called from the Big Blind or maybe we raised aggressively to represent something - doesn't matter for this point. Point is we are in the hand with Kh3d and now the Flop comes:

Ks8c5h

(this flop favors a Big Blind player than a raiser from somewhere like UTG, but this is a different tangent)

Okay cool, we have top pair, but now what? Our 3 kicker is not impressive, but the paired King might give us just enough rope for us to continue and lose a lot. A beginner could easily misplay the hand and lose a ton when a tighter strategy might not even have entered this situation because they would have folded preflop. Even if you do have the best hand, maybe you'll get bluffed off of top pair by Villain showing aggression and us forced to fold.

Similar problem with other situations where we might not realize our equity. Something like a low pocket pair... say we hold pocket Deuces or "Ducks" as poker slang goes.

We hold 2s2c and the Flop comes 4c4hAd

We have two pair already and might hold the best hand! Problem is that we might get bluffed off of the best hand and especially so if out of position. What could the opponent show aggression with? Any 4 obviously, any Ace gives them two pair, but even any pocket pair has us losing a lot in many cases. Even if they are bluffing with nothing, it is tough for us to call here. This is why many players fold lower pocket pairs from early position or enter Flops to "hit a set" or fold to anything.

I'm not saying to not play K3o or 22 at all - they have their place, but just that a beginner without postflop experience and hand reading ability won't as easily have the discipline to escape a bad situation and can easily bust on a hand they shouldn't have been in. Perhaps one may argue that the experience can only be gained by doing it, but I think you can learn postflop skills and experience with objectively stronger hands too. Is it really so bad for a beginner to fold too much and observe how others winning at the table are playing? This certainly seems better than playing too many hands.

That is just my opinion though - like most beginners, I too played too many hands preflop. I didn't even know what a HUD was, but I probably entered the flop with like 30-40% of hands - in great part because I simply didn't know better.

For players seriously wanting to improve more than have fun, I think learning with a TAG style is much better than a LAG or more complex strategy because the strategy is more simple. Value bet most hands since you are usually ahead with your tighter preflop selection and that is much easier to grasp than tricky or more advanced strategies that might work well too, but take more insight to properly control and not quickly spiral downwards.

Just take my advice lightly, since I'm basically a beginner too though

 

[polar1ze]

I honestly believe "good hands" are so 2004 :angel::smile:

 

[el_soma77]

Everyone has their own way of playing, I think that beginners play the other way around, or on the contrary, instead of playing with strong hands, what they do is play with which type of hand, weak hand and speculative hands, of low range levels. that is the bad and fish players. They play any pair even if they bet on the remainder before the flop, as they are, really super bad.

If you lose, don't bother, understand that you gave your best ...

 

[LitPavel]

If you only play premium hands the player who understands this will use it against you.

 

[glebchekotin]

Depends on flop, low couples can turn into set, or fullhouse.

 

[Badday94]

One thing is for sure. If you play many hands, more are the chances you lose. Don't play only top hands either. Look at Daniel Negreanu for example, he loves playing low connectors. You just have to find a balance, but I'm no expert, just my thoughts.