Texas Holdem Poker Pre-flop Strategy Chart

  
Texas Holdem Poker Pre-flop Strategy Chart 3,8/5 1927 votes
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Pre-flop essentials

  1. Let's now take a closer look at Texas Holdem strategy and the pattern that is essential for beginners to learn. The chart shows how many hands you are supposed to play depending on which position you sit in at the table. Example: You are sitting as player 6 to the left of the dealer button and you have a king of spades and a 7 of spades.
  2. Now, we present you some advanced poker cheat sheets, ones that help you in finding the right pre-flop ranges when playing 6max and 9max tables in the no limit Texas hold’em variant. Every hand on the chart that is marked yellow should be open-raised to optimally 2-3 big blinds.

It is worth repeating yet again that there will always be exceptions to every rule in poker. But stick to these guidelines to build a solid game in no limit Hold’em cash:

  • Play your strong hands aggressively
  • In general: Don’t slow play
  • Raise three to four times the big blind (BB) as default
  • If you decide to raise after player(s) have limped, then add one BB per limper to your default raise
  • If you want to re-raise (three-bet) after an original raiser has entered the pot, then raise about three times the initial raise. If somebody called the first raise, add this to your raise
  • Be aware of your position: be very tight in early position and loosen up in better positions.
  • Stay aware of the effective stacks sizes in all situations. If you want to deviate from the rules, make sure it has the potential to be worthwhile.

You should take a few minutes to remember the rules above.

A texas hold'em hand is dominated if it has 3 or fewer outs against a hand it faces, like AQ against AK. In this example only a Q can help AQ, an A will not. A hand like AK is a 3 to 1 favorite over hands it dominates like AQ, AJ, A9, KQ, KT, etc. 32 is only a 2 to1 favorite). Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Cheat Sheet; How to Play Pre-Flop: Playing Behind a Raiser. This is one of the most important and difficult strategies to master in pre-flop play and it's where the Gap Concept comes into play. The gap concept is simple: it takes a much stronger hand to call a raise than it would to make a raise.

Starting hand chart

Texas holdem preflop chart

We have talked about the general concepts of the pre-flop game in no limit Texas Hold’em. The following chart gives a firm idea of what kind of hand you should be playing and in what situations.


The fundament of every poker strategy relies on playing the right hands pre-flop, and paying the right price (outs) when drawing to outs post-flop.

You will make yourself vulnerable if you treat different pre-flop hands the same in different positions.

Texas holdem poker strategy chartsTexas holdem poker charts printable

In our suggested pre-flop starting hand charts we will show you hands that you can play from various positions in poker games.

The best is to only open-raise pre-flop, this prevents you to be easily readable as you would give tells if you limp and raise with different hands. Poker is complicated enough, let us not overcomplicate it.

On this page, we will hand you a poker cheat-sheet that guides you on which hands to play pre-flop, on odds and outs, and also, we will give you a poker hand ranking as an image which you can just copy to use it handily.

Advanced Poker Strategy Texas Holdem

Check out our hand ranking cheat sheet, with which you will never doubt your hand strength.

To explain odds and outs in a simple manner i tell you this: In poker, you have around 2% equity (chance of winning after the river) for every out you have. Check the image (odds-table) below to see your equity and outs with different draws, and make a copy of it!

Now, we present you some advanced poker cheat sheets, ones that help you in finding the right pre-flop ranges when playing 6max and 9max tables in the no limit Texas hold’em variant.

Every hand on the chart that is marked yellow should be open-raised to optimally 2-3 big blinds.

ALWAYS open-raise with all your hands, unless you are in the small blind.

The hands in the “small blind pre-flop chart” that are green, you should limp, and the hands that are marked red, you should open-raise. Use an open-raise size of 2.5-4.5 big blinds depending on your stack-size in the small blind.

Texas Holdem Preflop Chart

The charts below, you can use for cash games and sit and gos with no ante in play.

Texas Holdem Poker Pre-flop Strategy Chart Printable

The game changes drastically when ante is in play, you should play many more hands given the added dead money. Taking this fact into consideration, we developed and designed two different pre-flop starting hand sheet sheets, and this one shows you your ranges when ante is in play.

Texas Holdem Poker Pre-flop Strategy Chart Template

What are antes?

Learning Texas Holdem Poker Strategy

Antes are forced bets that every player of the table has to pay in order to participate in the game. The ante usually costs 5-10% of the big blind and is generating a more aggressive game dynamic as there is more dead money to fight for. And This is increasing the relative value of playing a hand to folding.