When starting out in low limit Texas Hold em a safe and sure strategy is to only play the premium pre-flop starting hands. The top ten premium hands are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, TT, AQs, AJs, AK, KQs. While there are more premium hands, those are the top ten.

Premium hands play well from any position and are proven to be the top performers. As a beginner, sticking to premium hands will keep you in the game so you can learn and develop additional techniques to winning at Texas Hold em.

As you gain experience and add additional strategies the foundation laid by playing these starting hands will enable you to beat tougher more savvy players at all levels.

In some games this strategy alone can make you a winner. Always remember winning at Texas hold em is not about playing cards, it’s about playing people. Or as Phil Helmut said in his book, Play Poker Like The Pros, “don’t think of hold em as a card game played by people, in many respects it is even more valid to think of it as a game about people. That happens to be played with cards.”

Starting out as a beginner at Texas hold em with just this simple strategy, and really not much else in the way of poker knowledge should enable you to win more than your fair share of big pots.

If you consistently play only the premium hands your opponents will begin to respect your bets and raises because they know you’re playing with something powerful. Earning the other players respect, gives you the discretion to make different plays as your game advances.

You will need this foundation so that you can add some additional strategy to your poker playing arsenal, playing tight will not give you enough pots in a tough game. Premium hands won’t show up often enough to win consistently and you never want to become too predictable to the other players at the Texas hold em table.

All of the top pros suggest you wait for the premium hands before you get involved in a pot, unless you’re in a game with a lot of very tight players, which doesn’t happen very often in the lower limit Texas hold em games.

Waiting for premium hands means that you will have to fold a lot. I realize this can get boring, but how exciting is it play a lot of hands and lose most of them?

You can play the premium hands from any position in the betting order, and it doesn’t matter how many bets it costs you to get in. You should raise with these hands in almost all situations.

If you have a reason to believe that your pocket tens are behind due to the fact that the tightest player in the game reraised and made it four bets to go, then it might be a good idea to fold the hand. However in most cases, you can and should, play these premium starting hands, aggressively.

This strategy alone will not be enough as you get in the games with higher stakes and tougher opponents, but it can serve you profitably as a beginner until you advance your knowledge and skill.