The main problem with playing No Limit Hold Em Poker is that you can play too many hands. Being selective and sticking to basic 7meter strategy is, more often than not, going to make it more difficult to win. However, sometimes this is the best thing for you. In this article, we are going to discuss a way to tighten up your No Limit Hold Em Poker game.

And, I’m not talking about becoming a “never quite hand” kind of guy. That’s not who I am. No, I’m talking about becoming a more selective player. A lot of players read and learn but don’t repeat. And, when you’re reading, you are likely to make some mistakes. So, let’s begin.

Tightening up your starting hand requirements

The first thing to do is to reduce the amount of hands you play from your normal routine. How is this done? Use a card counting system which will determine what cards you should play from which position.

For example, early on in a tournament, you aren’t really concerned about taking anybody’s money but you sure can get this system zero times an hour and it will help you to save precious seconds as well. By eliminating about half of the cards you’ll play, you lower your premium down to 32.4% of your frames.

Now, you’re holding two open cards and you have a mid to late position opponents, you should raise. You would do this for two reasons:

1. you have position and are the first to act, making it extra important to steal blinds and uncontested pots.
2. you want to steal blinds when you can get away with it. Since your priorities are concealed, a minimum raise or reraise gets everyone to fold and85% of the time you’ll win.

Apart from raising as a first to act, you should also steal the blinds as position allows. Blind stealing is simply reraise – raise – reraise. Raise with 4/5 kickers (future terms) or if the board is dry. Fold with anything less than premium hands.

So, you’re using an aggressive strategy and you’re located in late position and no one bets or raises in front of you, what do you do? You do exactly the same thing the above scenarios: You raise, you stay in, you raise again – you have your opponents confused and they aren’t sure what you have and you certainly have the better hand.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to do this achieve less than 24 hours a day, every day. You also wouldn’t want to do this by playing blind or in early position. This is why I prefer the play to 3/9 or 4/10. Then, you can ford the bet without opposition and can get on with the act of seeing more cards. Then, if you take them on directly, you either end up showing your cards or having to show them if they want to know what you have.

If you have a premium hand, you should certainly keep them in the hand if you can, but you do want to reward those players that play fairly. Instead of just going all-in when you have a premium hand, consider using an access card. Then, you will only make bets where you have the best hand, making your opponents errors harder.