Preflop Foundations
Win the pot before the flop by never entering it wrong.
Most losing players bleed chips before a single community card appears — limping, calling too wide, defending trash from the blinds. Preflop is where the cheapest, highest-frequency mistakes live.
The fixes are memorisable: raise or fold (rarely limp), size opens consistently (2–2.5bb), and know your three responses to a raise — fold, call, or 3-bet — as a function of position and who opened.
Get preflop right and every postflop decision starts from a stronger, better-defined range. It's the compounding base of the whole game.
Words that carry weight.
3-bet
A re-raise of an opener. Your polarised strong-and-bluff response that seizes initiative.
Open size
The standard raise (2–2.5bb online). Consistency stops observant players reading your hand from your sizing.
Blind defense
How wide you call or 3-bet from the blinds — wider vs late-position steals, tighter vs early opens.
Limp
Just calling the big blind. Almost always a leak — it caps your range and invites the field.
It folds to you on the button with 55. Limp, call, or raise?
Show the answer →Hide the answer ↑
Raise. Limping surrenders the initiative and the chance to steal the blinds outright. 55 on the button flops a set 12% of the time and plays beautifully in position — open it every time.
Raise or fold. Consistent sizing. Know your fold/call/3-bet answer before you're in the seat.