Poker Starting Hands - Comprehensive guide to which poker hands you should play, including a 2020 Texas Hold'em poker starting hands chart. 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.

On top of the complete hand rankings listed in our table below, you can find also a printable hand rankings list in PDF format as well as a chart of Top 10 Texas Holdem starting hands to help you understand what the strongest starting hands are. The last section covers some of the most frequently asked questions about poker hands to give you a.

Mark Poker Articles, Poker Top 10 Lists

Submitted by Franck, this article belongs to the Poker Top 10 lists series.

Franck wanted some links on my blog, and I asked him to write a piece on the top 10 starting poker hands in Texas Hold’em. Let me know what you think of his article.

Texas Holdem is the most popular poker game in the world. Each day, millions play this card game on the Internet. Holdem is a simple game but that doesn’t make it easy to master. If you find yourself tilting more times than you should, then you need to consider your playing strategy.

One thing that can help you improve your chances of winning at Texas Holdem is to understand what the best starting hands are. In this article, we’re going to consider the ten top hands.

Basic Texas Holdem strategy dictates that you play around 25% of the hands you’re dealt. Here are the top ten hands and the percentage of hands that are won by players who hold these powerful hole cards.

A, A: A pair of Aces is otherwise known as American Airlines, Pocket Rockets or Bullets

• These win 85,1% of the time against a random hand
• Aces occur 0.45% of the time.
• This is the best starting hand you can get.
• Some play it aggressively from the start.
• You’ll see a tie occasionally (0.49%)

K, K: A pair of King is otherwise known as Cowboy Wolford, Cowboys, King Kong, Kangaroos or Ace Magnets

• These win 82,4% of the time against a random hand
• You’ll also see this hand 0.45% of the time.
• Although very strong, it wins about 2% less than aces.

Q, Q: A pair of Queens is otherwise known as Ladies, Jailhouse Rock, Siegfried and Roy, 4 tits, Flower girls, Hilton Sisters

• These win 79,8% of the time against a random hand
• Queens also happen 0.45% of the time.
• These are strong hole cards.
• However, they are susceptible to being beaten by suited hole cards.

J, J: A pair of Jacks is otherwise known as Jay Birds, Hooks, One-eyed Jacks or Disabled Veterans

• These win 77,5% of the time against a random hand
• You’ll see this pair at the same rate as the other pairs—0.45%.
• They can easily fall prey to any suited high combination.
• Play these carefully.

10, 10/9,9/8,8/7,7: The medium pocket pairs

• These win 74,8-66,2% of the time against a random hands
• These pairs will come up as often as other pairs (0.45%).
• Stay in the hand for as long as you can while risking little, they could be winners if betting is conservative.

A, K suited: Ace King suited is otherwise known as Walking back to Houston, Big slick in a suit, Big slick, Anna Kournikova or Santa Barbara

• These win 66,9% of the time against a random hand
• You’ll see these less often than pairs—0.30%.
• However, these can be powerful with a good flop.
• The ace gives you the best possible flush.
• An A, K can often win on their own or they can pair up.

A, Q suited: Ace Queen suited is otherwise known as Little Slick, Doyle Brunson or Big Chick

• These win 66,2% of the time against a random hand
• These occur 0.3% of the time.
• These are versatile—they can pair up or become a flush.
• A straight is also possible.

A, J suited: Ace Jack suited is otherwise known as Blackjack, Ace with winning kicker or Ajax

• These win 65,4% of the time against a random hand
• It comes up at a rate of 0.30%.
• The ace is great for a flush.
• Inside straights are hard to hit.
• Wait for the flop before pushing the betting.

A,K unsuited: Ace King unsuited is otherwise known as Walking back to Houston, Big slick, Anna Kournikova or Santa Barbara

• These win 65,4% of the time against a random hand
• They come up at the same rate as other suited high cards (0.30%).

A, Q unsuited: Ace Queen unsuited is otherwise known as Little Slick, Doyle Brunson or Big Chick

• These win 64,4% of the time against a random hand
• These appear 0.30% of the time.

Here are a few tips for playing these hole cards.

• Even with two aces, there’s no guarantee that you’ll win.
• Don’t play a pair of 10s the same way you play aces. 10s are much weaker. As an example, a pair of sevens wins 13.30% of the time. That makes a pair of 10s closer in strength to a pair of sevens than they are to a pair of queens. Play 10s as you would sevens, carefully and conservatively.
• When playing high, suited hole cards and hitting the flush on the flop, you need to be wary of being beaten by a possible full house on the turn and the river.

Use these tips and the top ten hole card breakdown to your advantage. Many players won’t go in on a hand unless they are holding one of the above combinations. It’s true that in order to play in this manner you need discipline and patience. However, those two attributes often payoff when playing Texas Holdem.

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Not a great article IMHO…but it all counts in Google when it comes to SEO

I usually folding pocket pairs below 10 if I’m not in late position, because too many risks comes with the overcards even in a fair flop.
Sometimes they’re good in heads up, or 5 or more multiway pot situations (when every player has each others outs…) but otherway they pretty much useless.

Folding pocket pairs below 10 if you’re not late seems a bit too tight. I will always call 2-5bb raises with any pocket pair for set value.

@Mark

I don’t agree with that, the odds to hit a set are 8 against 1 on the flop. If a over card falls (which happens most of the time) and the original raises places a bet you cannot call anymore. Even if it’s a bluff you never know where you stand and you probably need to call a bet on the turn and river too.

So I agree with the first mark, if course if its an tight table its a different situation.

@ The probability of flopping a set is 11,76%, which works out to an odds of around 8,5 to 1 (or if you use the European decimal system a pot odds of 9,5).

By use of the Easy rule of thumb (http://www.pokerbankrollblog.com/poker-probabilities_all-you-need-to-know.htm) the probability of hitting your set on the turn and river is about 7%. This gives you a total probability of hitting you set of roughly 20%, which works out to odd around 4 to 1.

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“Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.” -- James Baldwin
Playing limit Texas Hold'em, you are under the gun with a marginal hand like KJo. What should you do? Some learning players would immediately consult their starting hand chart, either literally or in their memory, and then decide what action to take. Unfortunately, rigid adherence to artificial charts is the root of ruin for many people who might otherwise become quite good poker players. A lot of these players may in fact become winning players, especially in rake games where the house takes its cut from the pot rather than equally from each player, but I suggest most players relying on starting hand charts are either doomed to never be much good at poker, or will end up merely mediocre. (Starting hand charts are a limit poker concept and never intended to be used while playing No Limit or Pot Limit games.)
Strong, solid winning poker is all about situational analyses. Every situation is somewhere between slightly different and very different from other situations -- even if you hold the very same cards! KJo is just not KJo, even if the situations appear the same on the surface.
Suppose you have two very weak/loose players in the blinds, with you holding KJo first to act. Ideally, you would want to play with these two loose players with this hand. At the same time, suppose you have weak/tight players behind you, who will fold hands as good as A♠Q♡ if it is raised. The correct play here will often be to raise with the K♠J♡, and much of the time get to play against the two weak players in the blinds. Now change this, and you have two loose/aggressive players in the blinds and solid/strong players behind you who will reraise you with AQo. Well, now your KJo is a pile of muckable junk.
At the very least, it should be easy to see that these two situations are extremely different from each other. Whatever value KJ has in the first scenario with weak players behind you and in the blinds, it has less value with aggressive players in those positions. It’s not the same. A solid, sensible player should consult his or her brain when facing these very different circumstances -- not some silly chart divorced from reality.
What you do in a poker game depends on the game conditions, the players in the blind, who has acted so far, who won or lost the previous pots, and so on. A dozen or more factors should go into your thought process of why a hand should be played, and how it should be played. Another example is: Suppose two super-tight players are in the blinds and you are one behind the button. The universe of hands you should play for a raise here is simple: every single two-card combination from AA to 7♡2♠. No starting hand chart can tell you that. Observing the people does.
When I was a kid, the Moms in the neighborhood had discussions about the best way to teach a five year-old how to ride a bicycle. Some supported using training wheels. Others thought “ride and fall” was the best way. While the training wheel kids started off great, zipping around on their big bikes while the other kids were crashing into hedges, soon the freewheeling kids passed the training wheels kids, by far too.
Starting hand charts are training wheels, crutches. They keep you from doing the stuff of playing poker: critical, situational, analytical thinking.
A rank amateur can look at a starting hand chart once and get some ideas about hands, but a chart itself is meaningless for one look. All that needs to be done is novices need to be told tendencies, like you should tend to play stronger hands out of position than you need to play in position. Starting hand charts lead to people thinking totally wrong in terms of how to play poker. They send you down the wrong road. They give you a bad crutch. They are simply just about the worst possible tool for a learning player to use.
Simplistic, robotic strategies can lead to a player doing decently (since most players play poorly) but robots miss out on profit the thoughtful players get, and robots present no threat to a genuinely strong player.
Poker is mostly not about cards, it’s about people. Memorization of starting hand charts is inviting permanent mediocrity.

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