Playing online poker for quite a while, I notice the frequency of pre-flop all-ins is quite high among online poker player. Pre-flop is actually a very important moment in Texas Hold’em poker games, yet you will notice the lack of magnitude in hand analysis and selection when you play online poker. There is nothing wrong with going all-in before seeing the flop, but finding out that your opponent is actually putting all his gambling money on the pot with a 7-2 of different suits can be frustrating after some times.

The first thing you need to do pre-flop is analyze the relative strength of you starting hand and map potential hand combination you can construct with the right table cards; this is called counting your outs. The number of outs you have with your starting hand should determine the amount of money you are willing to bet — I said willing, because you are not required to make the maximum amount of bet you can even with a strong starting hand.

Professional poker players also use the number of outs they get with the starting hand to compare odds and possibilities to use as bases for decision making. After proper calculation, you can continue with observing other players’ moves and amount of bets. You can pretty much see the relative strength of your starting hand compared to theirs, and then bet accordingly. With the right starting hand, such as a pocket pair of Aces or Kings and either same suited A-K, A-Q, or A-J, you can choose to go all-in before seeing the flop. I personally think there is not a single occasion when you should go all-in before you are sure that you will take down the pot, but you can have different play strategies and the decision is entirely up to you.