The Ultimate Preflop Poker Guide | SplitSuit Strategy
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- This preflop poker guide gives you the 6 key considerations that will help you choose the best preflop play - over and over again. Preflop is where big money is won or lost at the poker table, and small changes can help you fold losing hands early and pile more chips into profitable spots.
SplitSuit shares his expanded preflop plan (PLANES Method), with a focus on the key variables while ignoring factors that create confusion. By keeping your attention on position, the location of weaker players, your aggression levels, raise sizes (and avoiding the "default trap"), edge & EV, and SPR - you will find yourself in the right spots more often. Yes, it's easy to play monsters (raise AA) and weak hands (fold 72), but true winrate is found in the marginal hands like KJo, ATs, and suited gappers. By using this guide you'll be able to spot opportunities to flood your ranges with these hands, and spots to get rid of them early on.
Ditch your range chart, quit limiting yourself to a single raise size, and start seeing preflop for what it really is: a street that sets you up for success or dooms you to failure.
BTW, do you consider anything else when choosing your preflop hands & ranges? If so, leave a comment and let us know how you approach preflop!
RELATED LINKS
· Learn more about CORE: redchippoker.c...
· What Is SPR?: www.splitsuit....
· Take the Preflop Poker Quiz: www.splitsuit....
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Want to continue working on your PREFLOP skills? Grab SplitSuit's workbook right now: www.splitsuit.com/poker-preflop-math-workbook
i've referenced many, many players, teachers, coaches and books over the last few years, many of which have really helped me improve, but i would have to say that hands down your content has been the most effective for me. i've purchased products from you as well and again, your approach is really intelligent and intuitive. even when some things are little more difficult to digest. i appreciate that you don't "dumb things down" either. just wanted to say thanks.
...please keep up the good work.
Thanks a ton for your comment Boss, and of course you are very welcome =)
@@splitsuit Thank you James and you always try to reply. I don't want people at the Hollywood casino in Columbus Ohio to know about you. This has given me a legit edge. For your content 62k subs is low.
@@timelkin838 I'm coming for you next time I'm in town visiting my folks. Haha.
Boss Bear I definitely have exactly the same feeling, have seen a lot videos/books from many accomplished players but splitsuit is no doubt the best teacher who can explains things incredibly crystal
clear
@@chrisd614 No need haha. Let's create a SplitSuit bird call. James you have to create a bird call so players like Chris and whos apart of the club.
Thanks again James. I think that you are one of my favorite teaching poker players. I don't usually think about SPR and possibly flatting to keep a weaker player in. My only concern with flatting with some hands in middle/late positions is that some players may call behind and make it tougher to play in multiway pots. If I'm solely set mining that is not a problem though. Thanks for the great video. You are the man.
You're very welcome! And yup, the "do I flat and possibly allow the MW pot or 3bet and nearly nullify the MW pot?" is a serious consideration and one that not enough players ponder
Hey James, I just wanted to say keep up the great work and the videos! I've recently stumbled on your channel and now I watch your videos all the time! I appreciate the information I've gotten from them 👍
Cheers Jory!
100% agree with everything. I do all of them. I could talk about each one for an hour. The newer players are always like "3b or fold" but it really depends.
Like a nit that has a very narrow range and can't fold AA/KK.... why 3b 88? Call for set mining, stack him. This isn't a 3b or fold situation, it's a call situation.
Good thought guide.
Realizing that I can accomplish different objectives using different raise sizes and focusing on spr along with hand selection has already made me a better poker player. Thank you. Poker is full of diverse situations. Playing like a robot is a leak! Thanks Split Suit!
I've not been playing long but I am noticing what you said, you have to be somewhat random sometimes to draw others into traps and mistakes, counter intuitive plays may sometimes lose you small chips but it will keep others guessing when you go in for the kill.
excellent insights into upping your game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something to think about is cards folded pre-flop. 6 man game and 3 people fold pre-flop.
You can see this as 2 flops being dealt out before the 3rd flop that you get to play. How often would your cards hit the 3rd flop?
6 cards folded is 2 flops. So 2 have been dealt out already, and you only get to bet the third.
Just perspective for some to think about.
just found this channel! thanks so much for all this great content! fun to get back into it and be able to take what you learn and practice/manipulate it to your own personal style while understanding the underlying math/probabilities
You're very welcome! Integrate as you see fit 😁
awesome vids, I have watched your stuff since poker arena? sick content :) I'm buying core tomorrow :)
I'm just getting into cards coming from playing poker dice for a long time. Not a big fan of preflop strategy but I use it around 20% of the time with 15% of good/fairly good hands and 5% bluffs. I seem to be doing ok though do get sucked into my own raises and ego battles when I should fold and inevitably lose the pot sometimes.
thanks for the video, I will try to get my head more into preflop as I progress.
I'd have my way with you at the table noob
@@brendan9340 Grow up.
@@RealmsOfThePossible let's play heads up. Name any stake
@@brendan9340 zzzzz
blocked
i could cry! table to really help me finally??here is so much material that confuses me while im trying to improve! are you guys
I think your comment came in a bit garbled. Are you happy or upset?
wow sorry, no, im happy to learn!
@@brettmorton6513 Cheers!
@@ThePokerBank Ty! Same to you! Quick question James, suggestions on getting good at reading players hands??? Total weekness of mine!!
@@brettmorton6513 I have a complete course on that here! www.splitsuit.com/hand-reading-super-pack/offer_step/hrsp-1
Hey James, love your vids. Unfortunately I think RUclips’s algorithm doesn’t like your channel for some reason. I am subscribed and always click like yet rarely see you in my feed. Maybe something to look into
Thanks Ben. I'm an education channel in a sea of entertainment - it's tough to gain huge visibility =)
Probably cuz it's poker content RUclips doesn't like gambling
I actually found him from a RUclips referral so that’s good news! Excellent video too.
My philosophy Is when It comes to playing poker....
Analyse these things often..
2-4 rule create a chart
2x1
2x2
If you need 4 cards on the turn 2x4 =8% chance ect.
Analyse Phil Gordons 2-4 rule.
Secondly Get very good at pot odds and equity.....
Most of the time bet between 10% and 2/3 of pots are more EQ in play. Most put large bets than the EQ they are getting.
Also note making large bets all the time seems sloppy and like your trying hard to bluff.
Think about pot odds and outs and EQ alot......
Realise that most of time you should fold early check or fold alot.......
I mean after the flop (3 Initial cards dealt up) two cards that you exactly need are quite hard to get.
Most flush draws or I need two cards to complete this after flop dosen't happen regularly or often once in awhile one in 100-200 games or hands they might.
Make your choice to stay in til the showdown quite early .. this will make losing profits harder...
I rarely go All In or bet the pots EQ reasons......
I rarely do more than call on the preflop (I like to see what has been showed I don't bet blind.)
Betting before the flop and going all In takes balls and courage you don't know whats coming.
Normally I'd go all In If I reckoned my hand would be quite hard to beat royal flush, straight flush ect four of a kind really hard hands to beat are the best to go all In for. The top 4 hands are quite hard to beat.
I like to be certain most of the time this will be not be beat!!! Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house are very hard to beat.
I rarely Bluff.......
A tip and technique for preflop....
Never raise or pay more than anyone else during the preflop when your not forced to bet SB or BB fold more often It will save you a canny buck.
SB and BB have to pay blind bets. When your not one the blinds fold more often.
When to fold sometimes I will take a risk... But most of the time look at high hands the top 20 poker hands are pairs or pitcher cards. AJ AA ect.
Anything above a 8 or pocket pairs above 7-8 are generally quite good.
Pocket Pairs AA, KK,QQ,AK ect are quite good..
This has been awesome man, thank you
Great vid, learned so much
Cheers Peter!
James, how do you think outside prop action like high hand and bad beat jackpot affect PF calling range? I don’t see it as much at 2/5, but at 1/2 players will call with any two cards just for a shot at the high hand.
Raise bigger pre&cbet more
I think you are correct that many low live players expand their preflop ranges with the justification that there is a BBJ or HH in effect. I wrote a chapter about this in Unfolding Poker, but essentially, promos like that should very rarely change your preflop strategy as the EV bump is almost negligible...
This video was a great reminder to not get stuck in a rut preflop playing each hand in each position the same way every time, but to allow yourself to be flexible, both in range and bet sizing, based on all of the relevant details of the situation. It really makes all of those preflop hand charts seem silly, although those are still good starting points for making high quality decisions.
One thing that seems pretty vague is your use of "EV" and "edge" as if we should know them. But really those are the products of complex calculations and very hard to estimate on the fly. In terms of "edge", it seems hard to do much better than having a general feeling that your decision quality is generally higher than a particular fish while sitting in the game. Similarly, EV being positive or negative is often very close and very difficult to determine, and if it's clearly positive or negative then the right move is also obvious and it seems strange to refer to the particular technical term of EV.
As an example, in my local 1-3 game, the situation you describe at 11:48 is not at all clear whether cold calling or raising with TT on the button is a "profitable" or +EV play. Many players in the pool will literally only raise a range of JJ+/AK, never TT or AQ. They might even limp with any of those big hands too. Against that range, TT is 33.45%. Raising is suicide as you are mainly getting big action while crushed, and calling is no slam dunk as you can't be sure whether you need to hit your set, even if you have position with reasonable stacks behind, they're about equally likely to hold a bigger pocket pair or AK and it might be tough to sniff out which until it's too late. Additionally, if an ace or king flops you are beating no hand, and if one doesn't flop, the AK part of the range is unlikely to put in a single extra dollar while the bigger pairs have you crushed. Perhaps you could take advantage of postflop checks as weakness in this game and steal from QQ on an ace high flop, but that seems unreliable, and even so, it's hard to be confident in a postflop edge when your preflop range is crushed so badly. I would probably call to setmine in my local game, but I think this is a leak and don't think it's a profitable call in my game, folding is probably the best play against all of the nitty raisers.
Thanks Thor! As for your 1/3 example, be sure not to confuse EV and equity. While equity is factored into EV, just taking equity alone (your 33.45% output of TT vs. JJ+/AK) isn't taking a complete look at the picture. I would also suggest you spend some extra time thinking about the last few sentences of your comment and using some software (like Flopzilla) to see how many money making opportunities are available even against such a strong preflop range...
As a side note, EV calculations is a work from off-table analysis and not meant to be calculated on the fly
Excellent video..thank you for your thought process and framework.
You're very welcome Bill - I'm glad you liked it and I hope the framework serves you well!
I dont understand why I wound want to change my 3bet size IP (3x). Can you tell me and example where this is profitable? Thank you
Hey I play 1-3 Texas hold em and always lose my stack ,I bye in for $300 n like I gets it up to like $700 -$1000 and lose it any pointers on how to keep it?? Like I fine myself I big post alot,
Nice video! :D
I think I tend to devalue the majority of the times the strenght of pairs like TT 99 88 and probably would call to see the flop and If the board it's some card above 10 I wouldn't be so secure on how to play, thoughts on that? Also ofc our plays depend on our opponents, but, what about when we don't have information about our opponent? Thanks for the videos, for the content and HAPPY GRINDIND!!
When you don't have info, relying on GTO simplifications can be super valuable. I actually just released a podcast episode talking about this very thing if you're interested: redchippoker.com/feel-or-math-player/
@@splitsuit I will watch it while I do my Jogging! Thanks
Done! Thank you! Hug from Portugal!
Pocket 2s have a 51% chance to beat AKs preflop.
PLANES...? I prefer my shorter D.U.M.B - method:
Drop bad hands, Use aggression (Raise), Make them fold (C-Bet), Bet for Value
Sounds like a good Postflop model =)
my group of friends are a bunch of nits and calling stations. I can't play aggresive to exploit the nits because I will get called by the calling stations. What do I do in this scenario?
Play a little tighter and when you get nutty hands bet aggressively
Try and work out at what position you have strength against the weak player, where the calling stations are already out of the hand, and this isn't necessarily when you are on the button. Look at who is in the big blind, if the big blind is short stacked sometimes it's good to raise bigger, even though there is a strong player still to call, as the other players won't want to call you in case the short stack raises all-in. But then there is a good chance the short stacked player will believe you have a strong hand and just fold. Also, if the biggest stack is in the big blind it's sometimes better to raise bigger, then everybody else may fold, as you wouldn't be aggressive against the big stack unless you had a really good hand, and they don't want to face a reraise from the big stack, so it is one against one, and the big stack may just fold.
Thank you for the upload.
Anytime Dann =)
Great vid you should create a vid about some pre flop charts you use and go in detail about SPR
Thanks! I've done the SPR thing: www.splitsuit.com/spr-poker-strategy and preflop chart stuff is a possibility (although the topic doesn't excite me much tbh)
@@VPshadex Hey I'm tryna master my preflop hands before i move on to anything i know it's simple but worth it
Thanks for the great content
You're very welcome Blake =)
What is SPR?
SPR = stack to pot ratio. For examples and additional info, this guide will help: www.splitsuit.com/spr-poker-strategy
Thanks for the vid. Great stuff.
You're very welcome Joseph =)
You the best
You talk alot about how great it is to pick up the pot without resistance, even when we flop well. Do you always want to do this if you don't have the nuts?
Only vs nits, such as myself you can pick up pots without resistance, prefop maybe, post flop it’s ON! Vs other players, know who you up against. So I think Sweeney simplifies that idea to encourage aggression. Which is good for the game.
If you have the best hand, it’s really the same answer, it depends on your opponent. However you lean on increasing value, milk as much as you can without giving away strength, until the river. (Too bad AA only is the nut preflop)
I still believe that dynamic pre-flop raise sizes just make you too unbalanced. Even fish will notice you raising large with good hands and small with mediocre.
Whoever said to use such a face-up raise sizing fork?
I tend to only change pre-flop raises based on position and/or stack size to blind+antes ratio.
I agree that varying by hand strength will in the long run be unbalanced
switched off did my head in
Is it fair to say that PLANES is progressive? Meaning your proficiency graduates from P to S? If so, can I judge players at the table as a PLA, PLAN and PLANES player?
Instead of a clicking the link to the video which explains SPR it would’ve been nice if you would’ve just mentioned real quickly what that is
What about rake lol.
It's the cost of doing business. You don't see Fortune500 companies packing it in because they have to pay credit card processing fees...
I meant as in your pf calling range must be different given different rake structure.
@@jingweizheng4053can you name 2 spots (outside of absurdly bad rake structure) where your PF calling range would change based upon the rake?
I dont know. Thats why im asking you.
In nz the rake structure is 10% capped at 3 bbs. Does that change the way you play?
H o w the hell u knew it was morning?!
It's 50/50 =)
He put it on your range
Your play rely's on people drawing and not having a hand. More often than not, whenever you play with someone regularly, your gonna get owned over and over.
You have a shorterm style. Any pro, ir semi pro will stack you like a bricklayer. Play the cards you're delt, not what the opponents might have.
Do the same thing post?
That's a damn good idea =)
What Is SPR . As in the whole word not the acronym
My poker spank bank
What’s that beard hiding
Preflop is about 1 thing and 1 thing only, MONEY!, Any cards can hit that flop, i dont care if u have 27 off, itcould come up 777 or 222 or 227 or 772 or 72 A. Whatever, the point is if u can see a flop, any flop CHEAP , do it, now having said that if its ALOT of money to see the flop, then this guy makes alot of sense. U might think i play too many hands, i dont, but if u could see every flop for free, wouldnt u do it, all im saying is, try to see cheap flops, u just never know.
got to be a troll... 10/10
Where are you playing? welcome to my table :-p
@@nikemolan7191
If you're referring to OP's post, I mean, I'm no pro but it makes a lot of sense.
That's the whole point of "pay to play" poker, where you have to raise 3-4x BBs to see the flop. So "any two cards" players fold, reducing the likelihood of them clutching a good hand with junk, cos no sane player would call a 4 BB raise with 63o.
Who is the best living poker player. Who will have an edge against their opponent literally every single time. Phil Ivey?
Dig
This video is about how 3bet and 4bet with 7-2? And the fish have AA
So...you didn't watch the video at all then, huh?
Is the word preflop funny to anyone else?
dude i’m new to poker , your definitely not for new players tryin ti learn
Welcome to poker! If you are new to poker and trying to learn everything (including terms) from the ground up, I would highly suggest CORE: redchippoker.com/launch-core
You won't say fish but you will say droole r? Even worse,!
You sound like you are talking with one lung
Great video but the beard is getting really difficult to look at.
Very informative video but this guy still talks way to fast.
It would be more enjoyable if he would talk with a more conversational speed.
You know like two guys talking poker over a beer and not two guys hyped up on caffeine and Red Bull.
Its very easy to tell when you are talking way to fast.
Playback an audio of yourself and listen when you come to an end of a sentence.
If everytime you come to an end of a sentence and you find yourself gasping to take air ( it's only a mili second gasp), then you are talking way to fast.
I find the play back speed tool to be very helpful. You can access it by clicking the three dots on the video and managing the playback speed there.
Where you play at online? I play at global poker. PokerKing906
This has FAR too many acronyms, im sure it helps with more experienced players but im for sure not going to be looking to this guy for guides.
Do you have questions on any of them? Every learning space has slang and acronyms, and poker is no different =)
@@ThePokerBank I've watched a lot of guides in many different fields, and while there is slang in every group it's just pretentious ones that use slang in every single sentence. You want to alienate a large portion of the population, go for it, but there are lots of people in every industry that manage to teach without speaking in industry code.
Fair. Do you have a particular sentence or 2 (that doesn't use "SPR", since that only exists in acronym form) that caused particular confusion?
@@ThePokerBank the entire video was short form lingo man.