Poker Starting Hands

Probably the quickest way to turn from a new inexperienced player into a winning one is to sharpen up your hand selection, especially at the low stakes. One of the most obvious and easy to detect flaws in a novice’s game is that they play too many hands. When you refine your choice of starting hands, you immediately and mathematically put yourself in a better position to win money because it is going to be so much more likely that you will have the best hand at show down.

Both of your hole cards need to connect in some way to make them playable, so basically if they are paired, suited or connected in such a way that they could flop a straight. Also the higher they are the better because they will have more showdown value, so KQ is infinitely better than QJ. Even with this in mind, you still need to be very selective with your hands and if in doubt, don’t play a hand if you are not sure of its relative strength.

Not only should you consider the immediate strength of your hand, you should also consider your position at the table and the action in front of you. Some hands will play better from certain positions than others, for example AJ is not a very strong hand under the gun at a nine handed table because there is a good chance one of the other eight players has you beat, but it plays very well under the gun in a five handed table where it figures to be the best. A suited connector plays badly from the small blind because you have to act first on every street which can be expensive if you have a draw, but it plays well on the button where you can see the next card cheaply.

Also some hands play better heads up while others have more value multi way. For example, pocket aces is very strong against one opponent and is an 85% favourite against a random hand, but against two opponents it is only a 73% favourite and vs. three is just a 64% favourite. Likewise, some hands go up in value when more players are involved. Suited connecting hands do very well against multiple opponents because although you are just as likely to make a straight or flush, when you do it is much more likely you will get paid off with it.

Premium Hands

Premium hands are the best starting hands in poker and most of them can be played profitably from any position at the table. Obviously some are stronger than others, but most of them should be played strongly, particularly if you are in late position, against a loose opponent or are in the later stages of a tournament situation. These are also the kind of hands that you want to raise or re-raise before the flop to thin out the field, because they play much better against one opponent than in a multi way pot.

Big Pairs (JJ-AA): The best possible starting hands in poker and ones which often will figure to be the best hand on the end without having to improve. Tread carefully if there is an over card to your pair (Like an ace high flop when you have pocket kings) but generally you should look to playing this hands aggressively before and after the flop, because you will often get paid off by lesser pairs. Pocket aces is the best possible starting hand in poker and should not be folded before the flop, it is also a very strong hand post flop and you need a really good reason to fold it then too.

Big Aces (AT-AK): Also very strong hands, because even though you don’t have a pair yet there is a decent chance you will flop one and have the best hand, whether you flop your ace or your kicker, and that someone will pay off with a worse hand. Play them aggressively before the flop and the same after the flop, even if you miss because you might still win the pot or make a better hand on the turn or river. If you do face aggression when you miss, however, be prepared to fold because after all you are still losing even to a pair of twos. Ace-King, known as big slick, is the best unpaired starting hand in poker because whether you hit your ace or your king, you have the best kicker to go with it and you dominate so many other hands.

Medium Strength Hands

Almost all of the hands below figure to be the best against a purely random hand or heads up, however they are still not incredibly strong and will often be dominated. The trick to hands like this is playing them in the right situations and against the right opposition. In late position and against loose players they tend to do very well, in early position, vs a raise or against a tight player, they probably should be folded.

Weak Aces (A2-A9): Weak aces are often a real ‘trap hand’ in that playing them can trap you into losing a lot of money. The fact that there is an ace in your hand makes them appealing, but if you flop an ace and still get called/raised, you probably are outkicked and in trouble. Its best to fold most of these hands, the only time they might be worth a peek is when you are in late position and with not many players left to act, you probably have the only ace. If the hand is suited it’s a bonus because you have a chance of making the nut flush, but that alone is not a strong enough reason to play them.

Broadway Hands (JT-KQ): A broadway hand is any hand that contains two cards between a ten and a king, any hand that can make a broadway straight. The obvious value of them is that they can flop a high pair or better, the kicker is strong and they can make a straight. They can at times be monsters but in a similar way to weak aces, they can also get you into trouble. Any pair you make can potentially be outkicked and even if you do hit a big hand like two pair, you could run into a hand like a straight. Like weak aces, these hands are best played in late position and you need to be able to make big folds if you get a lot of action.

Speculative Hands

It’s rare that you make a strong hand with these, but when you do it is usually a monster and worth going all the way with when you do. Rather than thinning out the field by raising, it usually is much better to limp or call with hands like these to encourage others to play, because you want as many players as possible to pay you off when you hit your monster hand.

Small to Medium Pairs (22-TT): Some people think that just because they have a pair they cannot fold their hand, but overplaying small pocket pairs is a huge leak. The problem with playing small pairs too aggressively is that most of the time there will be one or more over cards that dwarf your pair and make it likely you have the worst hand. Small and medium pairs, however, can be incredibly profitable when you flop a set (ie. a third card matching the two in your hand making you three of a kind) because that is a very strong hand and is usually difficult for your opponents to put you on, meaning you will get paid handsomely. The key to playing the smaller pairs is not investing too much money before the flop and being able to get away from them when you miss the flop.

Suited Connectors: Most of the time you will have the worst hand with suited connectors but the times you don’t more than make up for it. A suited connector is any hand in running order and is also suited, so 67 of hearts or 9T of diamonds. Hands that are just suited or just connected are not good enough to play, but when they are both they give you a lot of ways to win. Suited connectors should only be played in position because you get to see the turn and river cheap when you have a draw and it can it gets very expensive when you are out of position. Like small pairs, get to the flop as cheaply as possible and get ready to fold when you miss, in particular when you hit something like bottom pair which will only get you in trouble.

Anything else: It might be tempting to play anything else, or indeed everything else, but in the long term the rest of the hands are just trash and it is a profitable skill in itself you eliminate these hands from your repertoire, because you almost always hand the second best hand when you play them.

Suited connectors are often the downfall of lots of new players, especially the ones who have had a bit of early luck with them. A lot of people don’t realise that your hand being suited only makes it between 1-2% stronger than if it wasn’t suited, however the rate at which some people overplay these hands lead to the creation of a very popular poker t-shirt with the logo “But it was soooooooooted�.

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