This is rather straight-forward. Any player who has read at least one poker book knows that starting hand strategy is the building block to an overall profitable strategy. Yet very few players demonstrate the knowledge and/or patience to play good starting hands. Why is starting hand strategy so critical to Texas Hold'em?

Playing fewer hands than your opponents gives you the advantage in the long run. Think about this, if your opponents play 40% of their hands and you are only playing 20%, you will have the advantage in the majority of the hands that you play. You'll win a lot more pots with the best kicker. When you hit pairs, they will be less vulnerable to overcards. Your straights will beat lower straights. Your flushes will outkick your opponents' flushes…and so forth. By playing fewer hands you will continue to put yourself in the best position to win the hand.

Of course, it is possible to play too tight. This is why you have to post blinds in poker; otherwise, you could just wait for AA every time. Yet I have rarely run into a player that plays too tight.

So how many hands should you play? This is all relative and depends on the criteria you should evaluate when evaluating starting hand strategy. Each game is different which affects how many hands may be profitable. One of the main criteria in determining starting hand strategy is how loose or tight the overall game is. You can play more hands from late position with more callers in a hand. For example, 55 is generally not a profitable hand against one caller; however, this hand can be quite profitable if six players have limped into the pot. The more players that are seeing the flop the better your implied odds. Loose games allow you to play slightly more hands.

Another good example, yet less subtle is when you are in early position. QJs is a borderline hand when played from early position. However, whenever a player limps in before me I will be more likely to play the hand. I am getting better implied odds for my draws. In addition, once two players have limped into the pot, your opponents are less likely to raise behind you without the very best premium hands. So looser games allow you to play a few more hands but don't take this too far. Please don't let this be the recipe for playing lots of starting hands simply because you play in a loose game. Loose games allow you to play a few more starting hands.

Another criteria in starting hand strategy is whether or not the game is aggressive or passive. Many hands become unplayable whenever the pot is raised. This is a simple concept but many players fail to understand this very important point. A raise indicates that your opponent has a strong hand and also lowers your pot odds. Be very selective in the hands you play once the pot has been raised. Let's look at the great paradox in poker. The better you are the more hands you can play, yet exactly the opposite is true in actual play. The number of hands you play should be dependent on how good a poker player you are. Advanced players are able to overcome the weakness of some starting hands by using their excellent post-flop skills to outplay their opponents. They make better decisions on the flop, turn, and river to minimize losses with weak hands and maximize their wins. This allows them to be able to play more hands profitably than the beginning player. Most beginning to intermediate players should play a very tight game until you gain more experience. So think about this when you see a good player playing a questionable hand…maybe he can mix up his game now and then with some borderline hands but that does not mean it is a profitable play for the average player. Many players make the mistake of seeing some weak hands win a lot so they get tempted into playing them also.

I keep track of all my hand histories using Poker Stat and Poker Tracker software. These two products provide you with a wealth of information, including how often you see the flop. One interesting analysis I did was to look at the top 20 winning players that I had played at least 2000 hands against. I then did a benchmarking study for different criteria. In this particular analysis, I found the range of hands played by the winning players was between 18-28% with most players falling in the 20-22% range. This analysis was done for a relatively tight game so you ought to see slightly higher percentages in looser games…but this should give you a good idea. In general, most players should be playing between 15%-25% of your hands. The less experienced you are the further down in that range you should be playing. Yes, advanced players can play a few more than that range indicates, but it is better for beginning to intermediate players to avoid these borderline hands that can get you into trouble.

Matthew Hilger is author of Internet Texas Hold'em: Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro.