For beginners and amateurs alike starting hand requirements will help separate you from the donkey’s taking all of your chips when they got lucky hitting a straight playing seven-four off suit under the gun and the skilled player who selectively picks his hands and is almost never behind when he hits his hands.

The first thing to do is to devise either on paper while thinking about the game which starting hands you will play. There are a few ways to determine which hands you should play and which hands you should let go and once you develop this section of your game you will be on your way to playing successful poker. If you have no idea which hands should be played and you just play any two cards or any face cards than let me lay things out for you but first some terminology. The term opening the pot means you’re the first one to enter the pot with either a call or a raise. The term under the gun means first to act or to the left of the big blind. The term suited connector refers to hands like seven-eight suited or nine-ten suited

Hands to play based on your playing style:

Tight players: If you are a tight player and don’t want to play a lot of hands than the worst hand you should open a pot with should be J-10s any hands ranking below that hand should be promptly folded. This does not apply to pocket pairs, which you should play 6s and up but lower pocket pairs should only be played in later position. Hands like K-Q, Q-J, K-J etc… are only played in middle or late position by tight players.

Loose players: If you like to play a lot of hands than the worst opening hand you should play is J-7 and you should play all pocket pairs in just about any position. You also like to play suited connectors, any two face cards and king-7+ suited.

The next thing to take into consideration is your table position relative to the blinds and the dealer. This is of vital importance and is usually ignored or unbeknownst by the common donkey. To simplify playing cards based on position, when you are under the gun or after the player under the gun you should play your tightest, most selective game in this position. Once you are in middle position with about the same amount of players to your left and right relative to the blinds than you can loosen up slightly but don’t get carried away. Once you get to the dealer button or one to two before the dealer than you can play your loosest game but that doesn’t mean play any two cards, regardless of your playing style still no hand worse than maybe 7-6s should be played in this position. When you are in the blinds, even though you have money invested unless you can check your option I usually advise playing a tighter game because you will be out of position post-flop and will have to act with minimal information about opponents hands.