Evaluating Pocket Cards & Potential Investments
The key to successfully playing your starting hands is to know how to evaluate the strength of your pocket cards. The value of your pocket cards is dependent on the following factors:
- Your actual pocket cards. The actual cards will determine the initial strength of your hand and the number of “outs” that you will have to improve your hand when the community cards are dealt. Investment opportunities that have good “outs” have a number of ways in which they can increase in value.
- Your position and relative position (see “Position – A Vital Factor”).
- Number of players at the table and number of players who stay in the game.
- How much money you need to invest initially. The amount of money that you need to put into the pot will affect your pot odds and implied odds.
In investing, the equivalent situation to putting a value on your Texas Hold’em starting hand is deciding on whether an investment in a particular security is good value for your investment capital. You should avoid investing in a security where:
- It does not have a wide range of “outs” to help performance improve (poor pocket cards situation).
- You have not had sufficient time to assess the potential performance of the security (poor position).
- The potential upside from the security if it performs well is not good (small pot because of small number of players causing reduced pot odds).
- The investment required in the security to achieve a sufficient return is too great (a pre-flop raise increases the initial investment required and reduces pot odds).
The difference between to two situations is that the rules for evaluating your pocket cards in poker are easier to learn and apply than the rules for determining whether an investment is good value.