Now that you understand the position concept we are going to expand on that by looking at the subject of which starting hands to play and which to throw in the muck.
- Aug 13, 2019 There are 10 possible 5 card poker hands: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. There are 1,326 possible 2 card starting hands in Texas Hold'em. The best starting hand is pocket aces, while the worst is seven-two offsuit.
- The Best Texas Holdem Poker Hands Rankings In Order. The first things that you need to learn when playing Texas Holdem are rules and poker hands rankings. Without knowing what beats what you will be struggling to move forward. Thus, spending a few minutes going over the list of poker hands in order will pay for itself in no time.
This is the area where inexperienced players become fish, simply by not having the ability to fold weak hands before the flop. You can save a lot of money at this stage of the hand just by simply choosing not to play.
Texas Holdem Starting Hand Chart Many poker professionals agree that one of the most important skills of a successful player is knowing which starting hands to play in different positions and situations. Texas hold'em starting hand charts. Starting hand charts offer an overview of common situations regarding your position at the poker table and/or the action in front of you and tell you which starting hands to play and how for every situation. They're easy to read and easy to use.
The Importance of Starting Hand Selection
As you know Poker is a game of maths and probability. It is therefore possible to know which starting hands are most probable to win a hand and this has been statistically proven in many studies. These studies have been able to rank starting hands according to how likely they are to win the hand against a random selection of opponent’s starting hands.
Starting hand
By Starting Hand we mean the two hole cards which are dealt to you at the start of each hand.
Since we now know which are the best starting hands in poker then we can apply this knowledge to our strategy. Remember, when we play a hand, we want to play with the odds in our favour, and by selectively choosing which starting hands we play we can ensure this.
Of course if we just waited for the two or three best poker starting hands then we wouldn’t actually play many hands as the probability of these cards being dealt is only once in a while.
So we combine the position concept with our starting hand concept, to allow us to only play a narrow starting hand selection when out of position and to play a wider range of starting hands when we are in position. Therefore the benefit of playing in position makes up for the weaker starting hands we may play.
Starting Hand Groups
You could look at all the statistical information and studies, but we’ve taken all the work out of it for you. The following section is a key part of your strategy and you should practise choosing the right action before the flop using the poker starting hands chart below.
We have chosen 46 different hands that we will play depending on the position and situation we are in. Those 46 hands have been separated into 8 groups named Group A to H. Group A are the strongest hands in poker based on the statistics and group H are the weakest hands that we are willing to play. Of course there are many more hand combinations weaker than the hands in Group H, but we are not interested in playing with these and they will be folded into the muck straight away.
Group B
AK
QQ
Group D
AQs
AQ
AJs
99
88
Group F
AT
KQ
KJs
QJs
44
33
22
Group H
KJ
KT
QJ
J8s
T8s
Texas Holdem Poker Hands Chart
87s
76s
The ‘s’ next to some of the hands stands for Suited, so two cards of the same suit. ‘AJs’ could stand for A J whereas ‘AJ’ could stand for A J
Take a minute just to browse the hands in each group, you don’t need to memorise these, as you can use the chart to refer to, and once you have used it for a while, you will start to remember which hands are in which groups.
Poker Starting Hand Charts
Ok, so now we have our selection of 46 hands, and have split them into 8 groups based on strength, now what? Well we won’t just automatically play any of those 46 hands when they are dealt to us, we will make a decision based on the position we are in, and the situation we are faced with at the table.
When we are in position we will play a wider range of groups and out of position we will only play the stronger groups. Similarly when opponents have shown strength at the table by raising we will only play the better cards against them.
There are three charts, UNRAISED, RAISED and BLINDS. These are our Action charts, and show us what action to take when we have a hand in one of the starting hand groups.
The three charts are:
- UNRAISED – When everybody acting before you has either folded or called the big blind.
- RAISED – When somebody acting before you has raised.
- BLINDS – When you are in either the small blind or the big blind position and somebody acting before you has raised
UNRAISED | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Everybody acting before you has either Folded or Called the Big Blind | ||||
Action | Early Position | Mid Position | Late Position | |
Opening Raise | A B C D | A B C D E | A B C D E F | |
Call a Re-Raise | B C | C | C D | |
Raise a Re-Raise | A | A B | A B | |
Call the Big Blind (if Multiway Pot) | F G | G H |
RAISED | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Someone acting before you has Raised already | ||||
Action | Early Position | Mid Position | Late Position | |
Re-Raise | A B | A B | A B | |
Call | C | C | C D |
BLINDS | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
After a Raise and You are in the Blinds | ||||
Action | Raised from Early Position | Raise from Mid Position | Raised from Late Position | |
Unraised Blinds – Play as if you were in Late Position in the Unraised chart | ||||
Re-Raise | A | A B C | A B C D | |
Call | B C D | D E | E F |
To use the charts, just follow these steps:
- What group is your starting hand in? if it isn’t in any group then you Fold.
- What Situation are you in? Choose one of the three action charts relevant to the situation you are in.
- What Position are you in? Look at the column in the chart for the position you are in.
- Starting Hand Group not shown? If your starting hand group is not shown in that column, then you Fold.
- Starting Hand Group Shown? If your starting hand group letter is shown then take the action the chart is showing you.
The different actions in each of the charts are:
- Opening Raise – Make the first Raise
- Call – Just Call when a person has Raised
- Re-Raise – Re-Raise a person who has Raised
- Call a Re-Raise – Call when someone Re-Raises your original Raise
- Raise a Re-Raise – Re-Raise when somebody has Re-Raised your original Raise
- Call the Big Blind – Just call the big blind amount (also known as ‘limping in’)
Quick Reference
I don’t expect you to memorise all the starting hand groups and action charts. The way to learn them is by putting them into practise and then over time you will start to memorise them. But to start with, you can refer to the charts while you are playing.
You can either just bookmark and pull this page up each time you play or we have a couple of other methods to make your life a bit easier.
Printable Starting Hands Chart
A neat and tidy, A4 size starting hand chart which you can print and keep in front of you for quick reference while you are playing.
To download the Starting Hands Chart right click on the link and select save target as.
It is a PDF file, so to view and print this you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have this you can download it here.
Starting Hands Chart Desktop Wallpaper
Use this as your computer desktop wallpaper. It is designed so that whilst you are playing poker, you can place your poker table window over the Poker Professor logo and all the charts will be visible around the table. Neat huh!
To download the Starting Hands Wallpaper right click on the link and select save target as.
To set as your desktop wallpaper, right click on the file you have just downloaded and select “Set As Desktop Background”.
The wallpaper is optimised for a desktop screen size of 1920×1080 as this is the most common. It should work with most other desktop sizes as well as windows should automatically resize it for you.
Starting Hand Examples
Lets take a look at some example starting hands and walk through what the charts are telling you to do and what thought process to follow.
Example Hand 1
You are sitting in early position and are dealt A J. You are first to act and so nobody has bet before you.
- What group is my hand in – AJ is a Group E hand
- What situation am I in – Nobody has raised before me so UNRAISED
- What position am I in – Early Position
So from the answers to the above questions we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Early Position. You will see that Group E is not shown in that column so we are not allowed to play a Group E hand in Early position in this situation and so we would fold this hand.
Example Hand 2
You are sitting in early position and are dealt A K. You are first to act and so nobody has bet before you.
- What group is my hand in – AK is a Group B hand
- What situation am I in – I am first to act so it is UNRAISED
- What position am I in – Early Position
So from the above we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Early Position. You will see that with a group B hand we are told to make an opening raise. So we would enter the hand by making a Raise (We will look at details of how much to raise later in the lesson).
Example Hand 3
You are sitting in Mid Position and are dealt A A. A Player in early position has raised the pot up to 3 times the Big Blind.
- What group is my hand in – AA is the best starting hand and therefore a Group A hand
- What situation am I in – There has been a raise by a player in early position, so it has been RAISED
- What position am I in – Mid Position
So, we look at the RAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Mid Position. You will see that with a group A hand we are told to make a Re-Raise. So we would enter the hand by making a Re-Raise. (We will look at details of how much to raise later in the lesson)
Example Hand 4
You are sitting in Mid Position and are dealt 9 9. A Player in early position has raised the pot up to 3 times the Big Blind.
- What group is my hand in – 99 is a Group D hand
- What situation am I in – There has been a raise by a player in early position, so it has been RAISED
- What position am I in – Mid Position
So, again we look at the RAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Mid Position. You will see that we are not allowed to play an already RAISED pot in Mid Position with a group D hand. So we fold this hand.
Example Hand 5
You are sitting in Late Position and are dealt 8 7. Two Players acting before you have limped in and called the big blind.
- What group is my hand in – 87s is a Group H hand
- What situation am I in – There has been two limpers, but no raise, so it is UNRAISED
- What position am I in – Late Position
So, we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Late Position. You will see that we are allowed to Call a Multi-way pot with a group H hand (multiple players playing the hand). As two people have already called and the blinds will likely also call we can call the big blind and play the hand. So we would call the big blind on this hand.
How much should I Raise?
An opening Raise in general should be between 3 to 4 times the Big Blind. Anywhere in this range is ok, and as guide to start with I would raise the following amounts:
- When you are in EARLY POSITION Raise 4 times the Big Blind
- When you are in MID POSITION Raise 3.5 times the Big Blind
- When you are in LATE POSITION Raise 3 times the Big Blind
You should mix and match the size of your raises to prevent your opponents getting a read on your betting patterns, but the above can act as a general guide whilst you get used to your new strategy.
The reason to Raise more in Early position is because we are out of position and want to put as much pressure on our opponents as we can.
How much should I Re-Raise?
A Re-Raise should in general be between 2 – 4 times the original Raise, As a guide:
- When it has been Raised from EARLY POSITION Raise 2 times the Raise
- When it has been Raised from MID POSITION Raise 3 times the Raise
- When it has been Raised from LATE POSITION Raise 4 times the Raise
The reason for this is it is more likely that a player in late position has raised with a weaker hand than a player in Early position.
Practise Time
Well, that was a lengthy lesson and a lot to take in. Don’t worry, with practise it will start to become second nature, and that is exactly what you should do now with the first stage of your bankroll challenge.
Poker Bankroll Challenge: Stage 1
- Stakes: $0.02/$0.04
- Buy In: $3 (75 x BB)
- Starting Bankroll: $25
- Target: $3 (1 x Buy In)
- Finishing Bankroll: $28
- Estimated Sessions: 1
Use this exercise to get used to selecting which starting hands to play and which not to play according to the Starting Hands chart and get used to understanding what position you are in at the table. Don’t get too carried away at this stage though, play conservatively and be aware that someone may have a better hand than you. We are going to learn in more detail about betting after the flop later in the course.
For a certain segment of new hold’em players, starting hand charts can be fascinating. Even those with many years of experience who have little need to consult such charts still find them interesting as debate-starters.
In hold’em there are 169 different combinations of hands you can be dealt. For those of us who enjoy working with numbers or creating lists with which to organize our lives, there’s something appealing about the idea of ranking all of those hands from 1 to 169, even if we know such a list probably might have only limited value when it comes to actual game play.
In truth, there are actually a lot more possible combinations of hole cards in hold’em — 1,326 of them, in fact. But that total also considers suits as distinct, when in fact before the community cards come the suits are all essentially of equal value.
That is to say, is of the same value as when playing preflop, while and are also of equivalent value. So, too, are the different combinations producing the same pocket pairs all equal before the flop in terms of their relative worth. While there are six different ways to get pocket aces — , , , , , — you're equally happy no matter what suits the cards are.
So we get rid of all of those redundant hands and say that in Texas hold'em there are 169 “non-equivalent” starting hands, breaking them down as follows:
- 13 pocket pairs
- 78 non-paired suited hands (e.g., with two cards of the same suit like or )
- 78 non-paired unsuited hands (e.g., with two cards of different suits like or )
Notice now the non-paired combinations of hole cards neatly divide into equal groups, both of which are six times as large (78) as the smaller group of pocket pairs (13). The total of 169 combinations represents a square, too — 13 x 13 — another curious symmetry when it comes to hold'em hands.
Still, that’s a lot of starting hand combinations — too many for most of us humans to keep in our heads — which is one reason hand ranking charts are appealing and even can be useful, since they help players think about certain two-card combos as “strong” or “average” or “weak” as possible starters.
Setting aside the idea of actually ranking the 169 hands from best to worst, we might think for a moment about other ways of categorizing starting hands in hold’em, using that initial breakdown of hands into pocket pairs, non-paired suited hands, and non-paired unsuited hand as a first step toward coming up with further, smaller groups that are easier to remember.
The 13 pocket pairs we might group as big or “premium” (, , and ), medium ( through ), and small ( through ).
Meanwhile, we might divide each of the other groups into “connectors,” “one-gappers,” and “two-gappers” (and so on), further thinking of them also as “big,” “medium,” and “small” while also keeping separate suited and non-suited combinations.
These categories of non-paired hands are created by thinking about straight-making possibilities (affected by connectedness) and flush-making possibilties (affected by suitedness). There are more ways to make straights with “connectors” — that is, two cards of consecutive rank like — than with two-gappers, three-gappers, and so on. So, too, do you have a better chance of making a flush with suited hole cards than with non-suited hole cards.
Another possible group to create would include “ace hands” — i.e., non-paired hands containing one ace — that can be thought of as “big aces” (e.g., , ), “medium aces” ( down to ), and “small aces” ( to ). Or “king hands,” too. We like keeping these groups in mind, as hands with big cards like an ace or king can connect with flops to make big pairs.
In any case, you can see how these criteria for making categories can help when it comes to building those starting hand charts. And in fact most of those charts feature a similar ordering of hands, with...
- the premium pocket pairs and the big aces (suited and non-suited) up at the top;
- medium and small pocket pairs and big-to-medium suited connectors and one-gappers in the middle;
- and non-paired hands with less potential to make big pairs, straights, or flushes toward the bottom.
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Play NowHowever, there are problems with relying so heavily on starting hand charts that you don’t take into account factors that can make a given hand gain or lose value. Such as the flop. Or the turn. Or the river. Or other factors — including how your opponents are playing their hands — that can quickly affect the value of your starting hands.
After all, as anyone who’s played even a few hands of hold’em well knows, even if is the highest-ranking starting hand and a non-suited ranks as 169th, a couple of deuces among the community cards is all it takes to make the best hand worst and the worst hand best.
Learning the relative value of starting hands is definitely an important first step when it comes to getting started in hold’em. Other aspects of game play such as the importance of position, knowing when and how much to bet or raise, and thinking about opponents’ holdings and playing styles as hands proceed are good to learn, too, and help show how a great starting hand might not be so great five community cards later.
Poker is not blackjack, a game in which similar hand-ranking guides are sometimes used to inform players’ decisions about how to play. In poker you want to be wary about becoming too reliant on those pretty starting hand charts. They can be great for indicating which hands might be worth playing (and which should be thrown away), but troublesome if allowed to outweigh all of the other important factors that arise as a hand plays out.
That said, starting hand charts can be useful, especially for those new to hold’em. They also can be a big help when picking up other games, too, like pot-limit Omaha or the various stud games, if only to get an early idea what hands tend to play better than others.
But for many such charts ultimately are only themselves a way to get started, before the experience of playing helps players more instinctively recognize both hand groupings and how hands tend to compare in terms of profitability.
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no-limit hold’emcash game strategytournament strategybeginner strategystarting hand selectionstarting hand chartsmath