How To Play Hole Cards

Position on the Table

Your position is defined in relation to the players who place the blinds. If you place your bet soon after them your position is said to be ‘early’, if you are one of the last players to bet after the blinds your position is ‘late’ and anything in between is called ‘middle’.

For example, if you were dealt two tens, you are sitting in the middle of the table and the bet has been raised then the recommended action is that you call the other players. To find this out simply look in the left hand column for your hole cards, and read across the table until you come to the column which matches your state of play. Use the key at the bottom left of the page to understand what the four symbols mean.

Playing the Blinds

If you are one of the blind players, you can fold, call, raise or re-raise depending on the relationship between your hole cards and whether you are playing the small or big blind.

For example, if you placed the big blind, your hole cards are ace and jack and the bet is unraised then you are recommended to call the other players.

General Advice on Big Pair hole cards

If you were to follow a recommendation chart for every hand combination, then your game would become predictable to all the other players. To avoid this, here is some general advice about how to play if your hole cards are big pairs. A big pair is defined as two aces, kings, queens or jacks.

Firstly, if you are dealt these cards before the flop (the dealing of the first three community cards) you are very likely to have an advantage over the other players. However, be careful, if your hole cards contain two kings and the flop contains an ace a two and a three, your hand could be beaten by another player if one of their hole cards is an ace.

The recommended strategy for low limit games is to raise the bet before the flop cards are dealt if your hand contains a big pair. It is possible if you are holding two kings that another player will have two aces, however, this is fairly unlikely and it should not put you off playing this strategy. The only time this strategy might be unadvisable is if there is a particularly aggressive player at the table and you know that as long as there is no ace in the flop you are likely to have the best hand. By playing the bets slowly, it is likely that the aggressive player will bet lots of money over the betting rounds if he thinks that he is going to win. This means that at the end of the round the pot will be significantly larger and more money for you.