Best Starting Hands In Hold Em
- Best Starting Hands In Texas Hold'em
- Best Starting Hands In Hold Em Poker
- Texas Hold 'em Hands
- Top 10 Best Starting Hands In Texas Hold'em Poker
- Best Starting Hands In Short Deck Hold'em
Below, I have charted the best Texas Hold em starting hands and the best positions to be in to play-or not to play-a given hand. Texas Hold'em Starting Hands A = Ace, K = King, Q = Queen, J = Jack, T = Ten, 2-9 = Card value. Best Poker Starting Hands to Play in Texas Hold’em Tournaments Play No-Limit Texas Hold’em Poker Tournaments and win using the ‘SPATS’ Poker Strategy found i.
- General Guidelines
- Seven Card Stud
- Limit Texas Hold'em
There are five categories of limit hold ’em starting hands that we will discuss: Big pairs, small and medium pairs, two high cards, suited connectors, and big-little suited. Most other hands should be thrown away unless you have the big blind and the pot has not been raised.
Big pairs.
A pair of tens and higher is an excellent starting hand. With a high pair, you not only can make an even bigger hand, but also can completely miss the board — your hand does not improve — and still have a reasonable opportunity to win the pot. Obviously, the chances of winning with two aces are better than the chances of winning with two tens. In general, however, all high pairs have immediate value and should be played aggressively.
Small and medium pairs.
In hold ’em, as in seven-card stud, there is a big difference in strength between big pairs and smaller pairs. A hand like the
seldom wins the pot without improvement. Moreover, the odds against this hand improving to three of a kind on the flop are almost 8-to-1 (although you still can flop a straight draw).
Since small and medium pairs rarely win without improving, they have little immediate value and therefore can be classified as drawing hands. And to profitably play these hands, you need several opponents in the pot.
Two high cards.
Two unsuited high cards is usually a playable hand but not a great hand. Even though ace-king almost always should be played, a hand like theoften should be folded, especially if someone has raised. In addition, this hand must hit the flop to win in a multiway pot.
If your hand is suited, you should be more inclined to play. But remember the warning given earlier: Don’t overrate the value of two suited cards.
Suited connectors.
Hands like theare only fair at best. And if your hand contains a gap, you cannot play it as often since your straight possibilities have decreased. This type of hand usually should be thrown away in early position, and you should not call a raise even from a late position unless many players are already in the pot.
Big-little suited.
An ace or a king with a small card of the same suit is similar in value to the suited connectors and should be played as such. Of course ace-little suited is better than king-little suited.
Starting Hand Quiz
1. What hands are you primarily interested in playing?
Big pairs and high cards, especially suited high cards.
2. How do you play these hands?
Aggressively. Almost always raise, and with the better hands, usually reraise.
3. Suppose two players are already in the pot. The first player has raised, the second has called, and you hold two kings. What should you do?
Raise again. You have a strong hand and would prefer to shut out the remaining players.
4. In what situation do small pairs play best?
In a many-handed pot.
5. When you play a small pair, what are you hoping to do?
To make three of a kind on the flop.
6. When do suited connectors play best?
When many opponents are in the pot.
7. You are in one of the blind positions, someone has raised, and there are several callers. What kind of hands should you play?
All of the good hands, plus all pairs and many of the hands that can make straights and flushes.
8. Which hand is better, ace-jack offsuit or eight-seven suited?
Normally, ace-jack offsuit is the better hand. But when a lot of players are in the pot, you would prefer to hold the eight-seven suited. In this spot, don’t overplay a hand like ace-jack.
9. If there is no raise, what hands do you call with out of the little blind?
Even though you can get in for only a partial bet, you still need to be somewhat selective. Routinely playing hands like the
eventually will prove costly. In other words, you still should discard your worst hands.
10. If someone has raised, how does this affect the hands you should play?
Generally, you need to be much more selective. Small pairs and medium suited connectors do not play well against a large pair, and when someone raises, he’s quite likely to be holding a large pair. In addition, a raise makes it doubtful that a lot of players will enter the pot. This means you will not get the implied odds — the amount of money you anticipate winning versus the amount you expect it to cost you — that many hands require to be profitable.
11. When should you play a hand like king-four suited?
When you are in a late position, several players are already in, and the pot has not been raised.
Best Starting Hands In Texas Hold'em
12. When you have a close decision regarding whether to play a hand, what should you consider?
In hold ’em, as in seven-card stud and all other forms of poker, you must take into account how well those opponents already in the pot play. The better they play, the less inclined you should be to go up against them.
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In the first part of the article we looked at Six plus Hand Rankings, where it became clear that the 16 cards missing from the deck in this variant leads to a slight, but important, changes in how strong the starting hands are which we will receive.
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Pocket Aces
If we look at traditional Texas Hold’em starting hands, we would expect to get our beloved AA about once every 221 hands, so what about in our new version of the game?
Well, without troubling you with the maths (I CAN do it, honestly!) the answer is you’ll get your pocket rockets once every 105 hands, which is more than twice as often as in Texas Hold’em!
Naturally, what goes for aces also goes for the other pairs – you’ll have a pocket pair more than twice as regularly in Six plus Hold’em (as will your opponent! Don’t forget this important consideration).
Are there any other changes we need to know about regarding starting hands?
Let's Say We have JJ
A naturally tricky starting hand in Texas Hold’em, but one we would probably open-raise with pre-flop. How does it fare in Six Plus?
We need to realize that instead of beating nine other pairs pre-flop, now it is only a favorite against 5, and still a dog to QQ, KK and AA. So it is not as strong in this respect.
However, because 3 of a kind now beats a straight in Six Plus, flopping a set becomes very strong against many hands – flushesare harder to come by, as we saw previously, because there are only nine cards of any single suit available in the deck.
So, how often will our smaller pairs flop a set? In Texas Hold’em it’s about 11.8% or roughly one time in eight. In Six Plus, we will do the maths quickly (just to prove I can!)
There are 36 cards in the pack, we have – let’s say again – JJ in our hand. So there are two jacks left in the 34 remaining cards.
What About the Hated 72 Offsuit?
In traditional Texas Hold’em this is the worst starting hand, and almost completely unplayable. Well, as you can probably work out yourself quite easily, in Six Plus the equivalent hand is J 6 offsuit, which, let’s be honest, would rarely be played even in our normal game!
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Playing AK Becomes an 'Interesting' Problem
Well, first off, we will be dealt AK about 2.5% of our hands – which is quite a lot of the time, maybe once every five or six rounds at a full ring table, so it’s important enough to learn its worth in Six Plus Hold’em.
Best Starting Hands In Hold Em Poker
If we accept that suited versions become a lot more valuable - flushes beat full houses in our new version - then it can also make sense to play AKs slower than usual. Mixing our game up with AKs hides our play better, while AKo is still a very strong hand which we can 3-bet and even consider stacking off with.
Small Pairs
Of course 66 now becomes the smallest pocket pair. In Texas Hold’em we could consider calling pre-flop raises with this hand if the price was right – flopping a set and cracking a higher pair is our main goal – but now we have to consider that we are essentially playing 22 in a game where set-over-set sees our 6’s screwed, although on the plus side they do now beat straights!
Relative Hand Values
We need to be aware that these change a fair bit from Texas Hold’em, since stronger hands in general are being played across the board. Top pair, top kicker is nowhere near as strong – in fact it is very unlikely to win on its own as a best hand at showdown in 6-max or full-ring when we play Six Plus Hold’em.
There is also the ‘alternative river version’ of the game to consider, when receiving an extra hole card means that hand strengths can become stronger still.
So, in general two pair would be a median winning hand at full-ring – a useful thing to know when planning your hand strategy!
We will look at the change in Pot Odds in part 3, but a casual glance at things like ‘drawing hands’ shows that we are more likely to his many of them, as we have fewer cards left containing the same number of outs. For example, a gutshot – where any of four cards hits for us – now gives us 4/31 chances to hit after the flop, as opposed to 4/47 in Texas Hold’em – a significant difference indeed!
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