1. However, the power of hitting a set with these hands is so important in a game like No Limit Hold'em where the stacks in a cash game are often 100 big blinds deep. Just imagine what happens when you have 88 versus a bad poker.
2. Aggressive play is often the right play from late positions. However, you should really.
3. In No-Limit Hold’em,there are 169 distinct starting hands. They include 13 different pocket pairs ranging from deuces up to aces, plus 78 suited hands and 78 unsuited hands. There are 1,326 different.
4. In this episode of Everything Poker we cover the fundamentals of No Limit Texas Hold'em Poker. Featuring advice from a range of professional poker players.

• Best No Limit Poker Hands
• No Limit Poker Hands Rank

One of hold’em’s most crucial decisions is, do I see the flop or don’t I see the flop? In this lesson we’ll examine the importance starting hand selection and what factors you need to consider before deciding whether to hold’em or fold’em.

There are 169 different two card starting hand combinations in hold’em poker. This number assumes, for the sake of argument, that is the same as , or any other suited combination. If you are not dealt a pair, then your starting hand will either be suited or unsuited, and either connected or unconnected (gapped). This means your starting hand will fall into one of the following five categories:

Poker Starting Hands - Comprehensive guide to which poker hands you should play, including a 2021 Texas Hold'em poker starting hands chart.

• Pairs – e.g. , ,
• Suited connectors – e.g. , ,
• Connecting cards – e.g. , ,
• Suited unconnected cards – e.g. , ,
• Unconnected cards – e.g. , ,

Unconnected cards might be one, two, three-gapped, or more. The bigger the gap, the less chance you have of hitting a straight. For example, if you hold 73, then you’d need a flop of 456 for the straight. But holding T8, you could flop a straight with 9JQ or 679.

The Best Starting Hands in Hold’em

Let’s start by talking about the best starting hands, which are often referred to as ‘premium hands’. There is some disagreement amongst poker players as to which starting hands are the best, but few would dispute the value of the first of our three main groups, Aces and Kings.

Group 1: AA, KK

These two starting hands are the major players in hold’em. It’s not often you’ll get dealt Aces or Kings. In fact you get either Aces or Kings once in every 110 hands, so it’s not nearly as often as we’d like. Aces are by far the best possible starting hand in hold’em, closely followed by Kings. However, you should be aware that even Aces or Kings can get cracked, and they don’t play too well against multiple opponents. This means you should definitely be raising pre-flop to narrow the field. Extra caution is necessary when playing Kings, because if an Ace falls on the flop then you’re losing to anyone who has a single Ace in their starting hand. While they are very strong hands which most players love to get, they are certainly not unbeatable.

Group 2: QQ, JJ, AKs

Queens and Jacks are great starting hands, and with either of these, you can usually be confident you have the best starting hand. Of course they are dominated by Aces and Kings, but they’re a favourite against all other starting hands. While Queens and Jacks will occasionally run into a player holding either Aces or Kings, it doesn’t happen too often. Play these cards strongly, and always look to raise with them.

Ace-King is known throughout the poker world as Big Slick, and when suited it’s often called Super Slick. While it isn’t a ‘made hand’, unlike a pair, it offers great potential. It’s only a big underdog to Aces and Kings, and even pairs like Queens and Jacks are only slight favourites. The beauty of AK (suited or unsuited), is that it dominates so many other hands like AQ, AJ, AT, and so on. These types of hands are the ones that players usually end up pushing all-in with late in a tournament.

Group 3: TT, AK, AQs, AJs, KQs

This next group of starting hands is also a strong bunch. You should definitely be looking to raise pre-flop with any of these hands too. We’ve already talked about the power of AK, but starting hands like AQs, and AJs, are also very strong and often run into weaker Ace-X combinations. Even though these are all strong starting hands, and most of the time you’ll be winning pre-flop, you have to be careful – particularly a hand like KQs, which you can easily fold to a re-raise.

Suited Cards

Best No Limit Poker Hands

You’ll often hear novice players responding to questioning of why they played a particular starting hand with the line “well, because they were suited”. Some suited cards are worth playing and it’s certainly better to start with suited cards than unsuited cards. However, the odds of flopping a flush is 1 out of 118 hands (0.8%) with two suited cards, and you’ll only make a flush after the river around 6.5% of the time. Don’t fall into the trap of playing any two cards just because they happen to be suited – it doesn’t make a big enough difference to make junk hands valuable.

Kicker Issues

The word ‘kicker’ means the smaller of your two cards. Some players play a hand if it contains an Ace with any other card (such as an Ace with a 3 kicker), and this type of play ultimately cost players money and tournaments. For example, let’s suppose a player calls with A6 and the flop comes A83. What does the player do? bet? call? raise? call a big raise? go all-in? What if the flop comes Q63? The player has middle pair – which is very hard to play. Hey, the flop could come A6X – the player has two pair, Aces and sixes but this happens only 1 out of 49 hands (2%). Until you learn when and how to play Ace junk (AX) go slow with it. One good thing about A junk and K junk, is that you do not need to play these hands to learn when they may be profitable. Let experience from other hands and study be your teacher.

Table Conditions

No Limit Poker Hands Rank

Hold’em starting hands can be a complex subject because every situation is different. If you were to ask a professional poker player, “should I call, raise, or fold this hand pre-flop?” his response would almost certainly be “it depends!” Here are some of the main reasons why it depends:

The Number of Players

The value of certain starting hands is very dependent upon the number of players at the table. Certain starting hands are always going to be under threat against a table of nine or ten players, but the value of these same hands increases when there are fewer players. A starting hand like KJ might be vulnerable against a full table of players, but is considered a strong hand if there are just a few other players.

Position

Your position on the poker table will be a major factor in deciding which starting hands you should play. The later your position in the betting order, the better – because you get to decide what to do after most of your opponents have acted. We’ll talk much more about the importance of position throughout our lessons on Pokerology, but as a first step please see our lesson on the value of position. Playing position can elude us at first because it is a part of poker that lends itself to be exploited through experience. However, you must quickly realize that your position at the table should heavily influence the choice of starting hands that you play. Until a player has a feel or grasp for positional play, just believe and follow some of the suggestions on the subject.

A Raised Pot

Whether or not a pot has been raised should be a very important factor in your decision to play a particular starting hand. Your selection of starting hands should change when the pot has been raised by a reasonable player. If there has been a raise and a re-raise before you’re due to act, then you should only consider playing with a very strong hand. Of course this will also depend on the personality types of the other players and whether the game is very loose or passive.

Starting Hand Charts

When you first start playing poker it can be helpful to use a starting hand chart as a point of reference. We’ve created a couple of starting hand charts that can be used by beginners. Please click on the following links to view these charts (they will open in a new window):

Each of these charts loads as a PDF, meaning they be viewed on screen, bookmarked or better still, can be printed and studied offline.

Beginners can treat starting hand charts as the gospel, but once you know enough about the game to recognize appropriate opportunities, you can deviate because your adjustment may represent a more profitable play. Our starting hand charts are a guide, not a set of intractable rules. There is no such thing as a perfect starting hand chart, because every game is different and there are many variables at work. Game texture and table conditions can’t be measured and included into a neat formula.

There are many factors that may encourage you to tighten or loosen your play from our guidelines. If you have a starting hand that’s not listed on the chart, then there’s a good reason – it should almost always be mucked. But as in all poker decisions the phrase, “It depends” comes to mind. However, before you decide to deviate from our guidelines, have a reason for taking such an action.

Conclusion

Don’t fall into the trap of playing any two cards. Most poker players want to play hands and as a beginner it’s very easy to be seduced by suited cards or picture cards, or any two-card holding that contains an Ace of a King – but if you play hold’em correctly, you’re going to be selective and toss away the vast majority of hands you’re dealt.

When you gain more poker playing experience you can begin to open up your range of starting hands – but until then, proceed with caution and only play the best hands. Loose, promiscuous play will get you into trouble and is the downfall of many players.

In future lessons we’ll expand much more on the topics discussed in this poker lesson and get you to think beyond the actual cards you’re dealt. We also have hours of video footage covering starting hand selection for both no-limit and fixed-limit hold’em – so depending upon your preference, be sure to check them out!

By David Sasseman

David lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and has played over a million hands online and many thousands of hands in Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Las Vegas casinos.

No Limit Holdem Starting Hands

Starting hands are the most important thing you’ll need to learn in poker. These are the type of hands that you should consider playing pre-flop and a lot of factors should help make these decision. Things such as your table position, stack sizes and table image are extremely important. This article outlines hands you should play from different table positions.

Early Position

Only play premium hands 1010-AA and AJ-AK.

On a really tight table you can open your range slightly to include high broadway cards (face cards) or suited connectors, and if the players at the table are really bad you can slip in A10, 99 and 88 too. For short-handed games you can also play any pocket pair and you and suited-aces because these are the hands that will give you the nut flush on the flop.

With big pairs it’s crucial that you raise the pot 3-4BBs + 1BB for each limper. This is to prevent others from seeing the flop cheaply with drawing hands like 7d8d, top pairs don’t hold there value in multi-way pots. Another reason you need to raise the pot pre-flop with big pairs is because of something called “isolating hand ranges”. By raising pre-flop you give yourself a much better chance of reading your opponent post-flop and how likely he’ll have missed a board. For example, let’s say I raise the pot pre-flop with KK and get called by 2 players. On a flop like 5d-7h-10s, it’s extremely likely I’m ahead and I know my opponents will have missed. This is because after they called my pre-flop raise I can put them on a decent hand range of AJ+ or low-mid pocket pairs. If I failed to raise pre-flop, then I really have no idea what type of hand they have or whether I’m still ahead.

Hands like AK or AQ should almost always be raised in early position – similar to the reasons for high pocket pairs. These hands are in the top 5% of pre-flop starting hands and you definitely want to price out limpers from the pot. Also, if you only get called by one opponent there is a large chance you’ll still be ahead on the flop (about 60% of the time).

With mid-pairs like 1010 or 77 a raise is not necessary. Your aim should be to set-mine (i.e hope to catch a set on the flop cheaply). The reason we don’t raise these hands is because we want to build a multi-way pot with big implied odds just in case we hit our set.

With AJ or A10 we should just be limping too.

Middle Position

Here we can play all the hands above with the inclusion of J10 – KQ, and small-mid pocket pairs – on an un-raised board.

If you face a raise before you your non-premium hands should be folded, this means anything other than JJ-AA or AK. You can still call suited connectors and suited-aces some of the time for instance in short-handed games. Pragmatic play aztec gems.

Basically, you ought to be limping with non-premium hands from mid-position in the hope of seeing cheap flops. Broadway cards KJ, KQ, QJ and J10 should all be limped, along with suited-aces and connectors and ultimately you want to be either hitting two pair or drawing to monster hands like the nut straight. Getting paid off with these hands is what makes them playable pre-flop.

When facing a raise with AA-JJ you should always re-raise (a sensible re-raise is 3x the opening raise). You’ll be ahead of your opponent beat and this also stops early position steals.

On a really loose/weak table you can also call raises with QK, QJ and KJ. And on an extremely passive and loose table i.e one filled with new players, you can call with suited connectors and low pairs for implied odds.

Late Position

You can play virtually any hand – except junk hands like 72o or 83o. You can limp into un-raised pots with low suited connectors, connected hands, non-connected suits, pocket pairs or J10+ – and you can also raise your junk hands to steal pots.

Most importantly you have to raise any hands like AA or KK. You cannot afford to let anyone see the flop cheaply and you have to get rid of all the marginal hands pre-flop. Remeber that big pocket pairs don’t have any value in multi-way pots with 3 or more people.

A tip for playing decent hands like QJ or 88 on an un-raised board from late position is to min-raise the pot by an additional blind (i.e. everyone must pay 2BBs to see the flop). This helps build pots with lots of “dead-money” which serves to increase your implied odds for hitting a monster.

Blinds

The blinds is very similar to early position strategy, except this is where the majority of people make mistakes. Because you’re out of position (first to act on every street after the flop) you cannot afford to call with marginal hands for fun. You don’t get the right sort of implied odds and you don’t know who’s going to re-raise the pot after you. The mistake people make on the blinds is that, because they’re already slightly committed they feel the “need” to call more chips to a raise – however this is not the case. Your positional disadvantage from the blinds makes calling with sub-par hands very bad equity play most of the time.

In fact, most of the hands good enough to call from the blinds are actually the type of hands you should be raising with in the first place. The only exception to this rule would be high suited connectors or broadway cards (J10-KQ).

With high pocket pairs you should open-raise as usual. You should only limp from SB/BB with less than premium hands on an extremely tight board. There may also be occasions where you can afford to call a raise that comes round to you with marginal hands like 7d8d. in these cases, the size of the pot once you call and with loose players around you will encourage others to limp in also – which help improve your implied odds.

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