In all, there are 169 two-card possible starting poker hand combinations in a game of Hold'em poker. Most of the nicknames on this list refer to starting hands/hole cards from Texas Hold’em, but a few others represent nicknames for made five-card poker hands. When playing a strong hand, you may want to let up on the aggression a bit and try and lure more players into the pot. Ace-Ace (AA): Having two aces is incredibly strong. The minimum buy-in is $40 and the max $200. Pocket aces are a strong pre-flop favourite over any other two cards, and they are. This never changes. Leak Buster 2 6-Max Poker Starting Hand Charts. It was created by Bill Chen for use in the book Hold’em Excellence by Lou Krieger. Every position at the poker table has a certain range of starting hands that can be profitably shoved at a given stack depth. The process looks a little tricky at first, but it’s really quite straightforward and logical after you have. It features five consecutive cards, all of the same suit, in order of value. Step 5 – Deal Texas Hold’em Turn Card. You certainly don’t want to play every hand the dealer gives you, and even good players will. PokerNews StaffWorking out hand combinations in poker is simple: Unpaired hands: Multiply the number of available cards. You cannot bet or raise more than the size of the pot. After every player has two hole cards, the. Four cards of the same value. Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Infographic. Texas Holdem Starting Hands Charts. Using Chart #1, we want to call to encourage additional players to enter the pot. But there. They play ANY Ace from ANY position. Pick the poker variation you're playing in the top drop-down menu and the number of players in the hand (you can add in up to five players). Featured on Meta We're rolling back the changes to the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) Update: New Colors. There are 169 possible 2 card starting hands. Inflate your wallet with these poker "tips and tricks" Upswing Poker. The odds against making a royal flush are 649,739-to-1. Sticking with strong starting hand selection is profitable in the longer run. The best hands to play in Texas Holdem are: Big pocket pairs: AA-TT; Big suited connectors: AK, AQ, AJ, KQ;. Starting hands should have four cards (9+) for high hand. (preflop means players have cards in their hands, but no community or common cards have been dealt yet). They don’t apply to tournaments, SNGs, or limit. 9 Common Mistakes in Limit Texas Hold'em. 2. A diagram to show the general difference between small, medium, big and deep-sized stacks in NL Hold'em. Ace-Ace. Putting your entire stack into the pot is also signified as an “all in. KK – Second best in the game, you only slow down the aggression if you see an Ace on the flop. Watch the flop. They are good for new players. Play now at 888 Poker. If you are not dealt a pair, then your starting hand will either be suited or unsuited, and either connected or unconnected (gapped). This table was created by enumerating through every possible board and opponent hole card combination for each of the 169 texas holdem preflop starting hands. Texas Hold'em is a game in which it's easy to learn the basics - covered in this starting hands guide - but difficult to master. Pocket Aces (A♠ A ♥) The strongest starting hand in Holdem. Be careful, though. Make good decisions by following the advice given in this lesson and stick to our recommended starting hand requirements until you gain more experience. Key Strategy for No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Texas hold’em poker is everywhere these days — on TV, online, and in clubs and casinos. 99. A pair of aces, also known as “pocket rockets” (and sometimes “American Airlines”) is the best starting hand for Texas Hold ‘Em. Determine if we can profitably call. All other starting. 62o. There is no "generic" way of calculating the equity of a given confrontation except for calculating it directly. How You Play a Hand Matters Most The hands we mentioned earlier are worthy of going straight to the bin on any day, but one thing is certain — the worst starting. 2. This is the best selection of hole cards on which you can win profitably. 1. By playing fewer starting hands you can give yourself a huge advantage against loose, aggressive players. Aokrongly discusses these 19 starting hands in his ring game strategy. How to put your opponent on a hand and how to narrow this range down across the streets. Place the burn card face down on top of. However, most players will never play 2-3 either, which means. It is normal to 3Bet with 25-10% of hands. Learn hand rankings, table positions & the best poker tips all from one. AQs (uited) (Little Slick) – This hand is strong but can easily be dominated in typical all-in pre-flop scenarios. Starting Hand Strategy. They can be grouped into 13 pairs, 78 off-suit hands and 78 suited hands. Many players are unprofitable at first because they play far too many starting hands. The Mathematical Value of Being Suited. you have a good hand (AA, KK etc. If you have a pair, you're looking at the dividing line going diagonally. A pair of queens, also known as “ladies,” rounds out the top three best. These two are the lowest possible cards that cannot make a straight. In no limit, there is no limit to how many chips you can bet at any point in the hand. One could also think about the metaphor of flying high on your pocket aces. Much has been written about starting hand selection in Texas Hold 'Em poker. With 5-7 cards and a completely different structure than Holdem, Stud Poker strategy is a whole new (or old) ballgame. The most essential factor in this calculation is raw equity (the quality of the high cards essentially). The above 3 sets of hands add up to form the common answer of 169 Texas Hold’em starting hands. 5 cards of the same suit in sequential order. You can see the value of specific hands for these stacks through a Texas Holdem odds calculator. Before the dealer begins, the. The more players involved, the more time it takes for action to reach you. 45% against AK suited, 27. Not all hands are winners in poker. These hands can be played from any position. As such, they have been given a number of nicknames over the years. The reason why they are the best starting hands is because they are statistically most likely to. Here you can see the poker hands cheat sheet and the list of best holdings to save it for later use if needed. Odds and probability of AA vs KK happening. You will rarely (if ever) see this hand. So looking at equity. When we eliminate identical combinations, there are 169 starting hands in Texas Hold’em. Key Strategy for No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Most online and live poker rooms have limits on how much or how little you can bring to the table from the start. Trouble Hands. In Texas Hold’em and other poker games, the strength of your starting hand is an important determinant of your chances of winning by the time the Flop, Turn and River are dealt. When Low Limit Holdem Strategy and Tactics put up starting hands in the Summer of 2000 they were geared towards to hyper-loose limit Texas Holdem games of the Southern California live poker rooms, a place where nine or ten people would sit there and seriously pay to see the flop every single deal. Even the loosest preflop players (if they’re winning players) fold before the flop around 70 percent of the time. Raise: In No-Limit Texas Hold’em, players can raise the bet every time the action is on them. Video: No-Limit Starting Hands with Lou Krieger; You should now have an understanding of what starting hands to play in no-limit hold’em based on hand strength and your position. Although it is mainly focused on Texas Hold 'Em, it can also be used for Omaha since you can only use two of your best hole cards anyway. In Texas Holdem, broadway two cards that form a pair have the biggest amount of equity. The numbers are on a 0 to 40 scale. com Starting Hands Chart for No Limit Texas Hold'em shows you which hands you should play and how you should play them. , A K Q J 10. If you prefer other game types, check out our beginner strategies and starting hands charts for other game types: Sit & Go beginners strategy and starting hands charts ; Fixed Limit Texas Hold'em charts; Multi Table Tournament strategy; Pot Limit Omaha. From a pair of aces — the strongest starting hand — to. In some instances (versus extremely tight players and usually those in. No Limit. Strong starting hands win against weaker hands in at least three times out of four. To enter each player's hand, click on the respective. The more you practice Hold’em, the more you’ll begin opening a diverse range of starting hands – there are a whole lot of them. Best Poker Hands – Texas Hold’em Starting Hands: In the realm of Texas Hold’em, certain starting hands hold a distinct edge, offering superior chances of success compared to others. King-King, or Pocket Kings, are the second-best hand and have high equity against most hands except Pocket Aces. This hand plays the worst at a table full of players. Straight Flush : Five cards in a row with the same suit that is not A-high, such as –T♠ 9♠ 8♠ 7♠ 6♠. Pocket Kings – KK. Split Pots in Texas Hold'em. (bar A-9 hands with two big cards which you shouldn't play at all. This means that in a 6-max game you should be playing a lot more speculative hands like suited connectors and suited aces as well. When we have 70+bb we can play a very wide range of hands, especially from a late position. 5. 6. "Trouble" is where profits are made. In Texas Hold ‘Em each player plays the 5 best cards between the table and your hole cards. P = 1/1326. 2. What makes Texas Hold’m poker attractive is largely the uncertainty that lies within it. If you’re somewhat new to poker, it’s best to start with a solid value-heavy range for both your 3-bets and 4-bets. Computer Hand: Poker Hand Nickname. A suited hand is one in which all of the cards are of the same suit, such as ♠A♠6. What makes it so exciting is that this part of the game is so dynamic. Starting hands charts. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win Free Poker. Each player in a Texas Hold’em game is dealt two hole cards. Yes, 55 is a good hand to try to get a cheap look at the flop with. You can see seven cards in a complete hand of Texas Hold’em but you will only see two at the very beginning: your concealed “hole cards”. , ace through ten), and suited hands, all of which can be playable given your position and. Many Texas Hold’em players prefer 6-Max poker, as it allows you to play more hands per hour and there are. And thanks to the help of poker solver like PokerSnowie and PioSolver,. From the flop,. King King. IE, you can go all in. The best starting hands in poker are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and more holdings like this. A pair of aces, also known as "pocket rockets" (and sometimes "American Airlines") is the best starting hand for Texas Hold 'em. You can play. The hands that you choose to go into battle with in Texas Hold’em are vital. Using our poker odds calculator engine, we first calculated the "fixed-preflop, post-river" winning probability of all 169 types of starting hands. You should obviously be raising your premium hands. Except for a pair,look up your high card along the left and your low card along the top. A pair of aces is statistically the best hand to be dealt in Texas Hold'em Poker. The relative probability of being dealt a hand of each given shape is different. The following table shows my power rating for each initial 2-card hand in a 8-player game. As a beginner, when you first start playing poker you may be tempted to play every hand you're dealt. Here’s a. The following is an example of a No-Limit Texas Hold’em hand: No-Limit Texas Hold’em Example Hand. Despite going into preflop behind any pocket pair, this hand gives you a ton of top pair potential, flush/straight draw potential, and puts you ahead of all the other unpaired hands going into the flop. Examples: A♥ 2♥ vs K♣ Q♠ on a flop of K♥ T♣ 8♥; K♣ Q♠ vs 8♦ 7♥ on a flop of K♦ 9♣ 6♥. , 9 8 7 6 5. This is the best possible hand in Texas Hold’em and consists of five cards of the same suit, in sequence from 10 to Ace (10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace). Sep 7 2022. The 20 Best Starting Poker Hands. Ace-Ace, also known as Pocket Rockets, Pocket Aces, American Airlines, or Bullets, can be played from every position - early, middle, and late. Before we focus on starting hand recommendations, let’s take a quick look at how poker. These hands will be immensely profitable when our loose, passive opponents enter the hand, and get trapped when we flop a set, or make. If you need a quick refresher as to the comparative strength of Texas Holdem hands, see the list below ranked from strongest to weakest: Royal Flush; Straight Flush; Four-of-a-Kind (aka 'quads") Full House; Flush;. The world's most trusted Texas hold'em poker odds calculator. " DN: If you think you should see a lot of flops when it’s cheap, you’re wrong. All Texas Hold’em starting hands can be separated into two categories: “suited” and “offsuit”. Be wary of how many other players enter the pot, as more players increase the likelihood of someone beating your aces. Related. Everygame Poker – 200% up to $1000. Calling too much with trap hands (see How not to Suck at Poker). " The player with the best hand, based on their cards as well as the ones in the middle, wins the round. For more on which Texas Holdem Starting Hands to play, see: Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Cheat Sheet; How to Play Pre-Flop: Playing Behind a Raiser. Although your cards have much importance, your position is equally essential in relation to the dealer. For 1/2 limit Texas Hold’em CASH GAMES ONLY and below. This isn't a bad starting point, but it massively oversimplifies the game of poker. These are made hands already and there is less chance of one of your opponents holding a higher pocket pair. Whether you’re a complete novice or are used to playing high-stakes live games, beginning with lower-stakes is advisable when starting out with online. In NLH, players can wager up to the size of their stack as they’d like at any point. Bill Chen is also the guy that wrote The Mathematics of Poker. This is positive EV. Here’s a look at the top-20 hole cards for No Limit Texas Hold’em: A♠️ A♣️. Below is a table of Texas Holdem starting hands, ordered by their Expected Value (EV) in a 9 player holdem game. " There are 52*51=2652 permutations of any two cards. Each hand is followed by its long-term winning percentage (out of 100, of course) against a specific number of opponents holding random cards. Popular Articles. Texas Holdem Expected Value Hand Charts – 6 Players. Bill Chen is also the guy that wrote The Mathematics of Poker. The best five-card poker hand, out of seven cards, wins the pot. To surrender your cards, or to fold them, simply toss them face-down into the “muck,” a term used for the pile of cards that are no longer in play. You need to be raising and re-raising with many playable hands in order to isolate a lone opponent and take the lead. A pair of aces is the best pre- flop hand in Texas Hold'em Poker. 6:1 on the card (or as close to it as possible). If not, ask a floor person before you start. In summary, preflop you should:A 3-9 offsuit is regarded as the worst hand in poker or the worst hand in 5 card poker, while a 4-9 offsuit is also considered the worst hand in poker or the worst hand in 5 card poker. 4% equity against AA, 30. " Some starting poker hands are called by thier nicknames. These starting poker hands are not as strong as the premium pairs, but they have the potential to win pots at showdowns. This indicates which player is the nominal dealer for that hand. This is also sometimes referred to simply as a "TAG" poker strategy. This is the tightest range of all the. Be very selective of the starting hands you play: in a standard $2-$4 NL game you should have a 20-30% view of the flop percentage. It displays all the possible hands you could be dealt preflop without accounting for individual suits. The minimum buy-in is $40 and the max $200. The following shows the probabilities and odds of being dealt. A good heads-up poker player will assess the opponents mindset. 1. On this list you’ll find the Top 10 Starting Hands in Texas Hold’em – these are the ones that can make you the. Learn the slang that Hold 'Em regulars use to describe their hole cards and improve your vocabulary while you improve your game with THETA Poker Pro. Beginners love to see the flop as cheaply as possible, but it's dangerous to let them do it. They’re strong, can be played from any position, and are preferred pre-flop over any other two cards. From under the gun you're dealt A♥ A♠. 7-2 - This is widely considered to be the worst starting hand in Texas Hold 'Em. $1/$2 games are inhabited by everyone from 60-year-old nits to first timers to gamblers who raise every hand to young,. No. Juicy Stakes Poker – 200% up to $1000. Statistically, players should get pocket aces at least once every 221 hands. 50-4. Don’t Loosen Up Early. A lot of Texas Hold 'Em strategy is based on the cards in your hand. 1 = 42% of the time. Defending on Flop Percentage = 12. com Rating: 9. Your likelihood to win a play is also known as your equity, so this poker probability calculator is also a poker equity calculator!. The World’s online gaming authority since 1995. This way of working out the probabilities would be the more accurate way - however, just to note, the probabilities worked out on 5 of 52 are practically the same, and far easier to calculate. How to generate and represent your own range. 1. Poker percentages refer to the current chance of your hand winning at showdown. Hole cards are kept face down throughout the game, and can only be seen by the player holding them. Play Texas Hold’em and enjoy WSOP’s authentic features! Want to become a poker legend? The WSOP app is the right poker app for you!. Start your Texas Hold’em journey with a 100% poker. These five hands are all good enough to play in most situations, but if you value them too highly, they can cost you money. The 19 starting hands apply to no limit ring games. A♣-A♦ and A♠-A♥ are different hands), but that is more of a “just for fun” number as suits have no value over each other in Texas Hold’em. Every player starts by learning the basic rules of the game and the appropriate starting hand selection, which is what we'll give you here. Seat 1: Big Blind (BB) - This is the player who puts in the biggest ante aka the Big Blind. The Deal. Premium Pairs (JJ-AA): The highest pairs are the most the valuable starting hands to have in Texas Hold’em. texas-hold-em; starting-hand; range; or ask your own question. The ‘s’ next to some of the hands stands for Suited, so two cards of the same suit. Also known as “Pocket Rockets”, “Bullets” or sometimes “American Airlines”) is the best starting hand for Texas Holdem. Texas Holdem poker software for LAN. In addition, you can play them occasionally for deception value. Anna Kournikova – Named using the initials of the popular tennis star. Learn about poker starting hands and how to play pairs, suited connectors and. Royal Flush: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and a Ten of the same suit, such as A♣ K♣ Q♣ J♣ T♣. Except for a pair,look up your high card along the left and your low card along the top. Learn how to play all the starting hands in No-Limit Texas Hold'em and win more at the poker table. 7-to-1. Some others, like “Barry Greenstein”, refer to one specific card hitting the table in a specific situation. Flop: 10♠ J♠ Q♦. Starting Hand Selection: Chen Formula: Sklansky Starting Hand Groups In Texas Holdem, it is important to have good starting hand selection. Aside from the unadorned vanilla variety we now have Double Ups, Triple Ups, Heads-up, 6-Player. (e. To choose the first dealer, each player picks a face-down card from the deck and the one with the highest value card is the dealer. Pocket Aces are strong, so they are the most preferred pre-flop hand over any other two cards and 4:1 favorite over any other. The best example is preflop pocket aces. The betting for that round is also prior to the discard. Playing too many starting hands (see Starting Hand Guide). Once again, you will need to burn the top card from the deck, as this is one of the key rules of how to deal Texas Hold’em Poker. The list is roughly listed from best to worst, but hand values change somewhat based on the level of competition, the makeup of the game, and your ability to play well after the flop. Here are top Texas Holdem poker hands ranked, from the best to the worst. The reason why they are the best starting hands is because they are statistically most likely to win the pot at showdown. This should help you to not only make fewer mistakes yourself. This is comparable to the so-called “coin flip” pre-flop. First of all, full ring games play slower than 6-max for obvious reasons. No-limit Texas Hold'em Top Advice. 3. For example, when the player is faced with the decision of check/call, bet, or fold at the start of every hand, there are different hand. The Best Starting Hands in Hold’em. Poker hands ranked from best to worst: Royal Flush; Straight Flush; Four. Texas Hold'em 101. Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Cheat Sheet; 100% up to $1000 and $8 free . But by following a chart, you can quickly master what hands play well on a shorthanded table. 1 Answer. This is the same for all the main poker variations, including Texas Hold’em. Visit Site . With an additional 1,300+ potential starting hand combinations, however, the overwhelming majority of the hands you’ll be dealt will consist of inferior. The worst possible starting hand that you can form is 3-2. 8. Royal Flush. Two of the most critical concepts in playing winning Hold ’em are understanding table position—the position of every player at the table in relationship to the dealer button—and learning how to evaluate your two pocket cards, or starting hand. The odds of being dealt any specific pocket pair, such as aces, is 220-to-1 but the odds of being dealt a pair of aces and then someone at the same table being dealt pocket kings is slightly less as the two aces have been removed from the 52-card deck. Here are the best hands in Texas holdem starting with the lowest-ranked: High Card - also known as ace high. The numbers are on a 0 to 40 scale. 1. The best starting hands in poker are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and more holdings like this. Check out these 10 Texas Hold'em poker strategy tips and tricks from pro players. Royal Flush: Ace, King, Queen, Jack and a Ten of the same suit, e. Starting Hand Charts – Charts on how to play your hold’em hand from the Blinds, Early Position, Middle Position, and Late Position. #4: Texas Holde'm Chest Sheet - Starting Hands. Paired hands: Find the number of available cards. g. Unless you’re an advanced player the best way to play this hand is always with a raise before the flop. In this article, you'll learn: How to use the poker hand. The 19 starting hands apply to no limit ring games. The decision of how to play your first two cards is something you face every hand, and the value of your first two cards is highly correlated to your probability of winning. Texas Holdem Hands in Order. In Texas Hold'em, when you have a strong hand, you have a lot of equity. ‘AJs’ could stand for A J whereas ‘AJ’ could stand for A J. As a professional poker player myself for over 10 years now, these are my top 21 Texas Holdem tips that most pros don't want you to know about! 1. That’s bad poker. Featured on Meta Incident update and uptime reporting. The dealer begins each game by distributing these cards one at a time to each player, starting with the player in the small blind position. These small pocket pairs don’t play well at early position for a beginner player, wait until you get more experienced before playing them. Everyone starts with two cards, known as hole cards. See which hands beat each other in our guide to Texas Hold'em poker hand rankings. Texas Holdem: Starting Poker Hands. Also briefly touched on are certain hand groups like big pocket pairs, hands with two Broadway cards (i. 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. But a starting hand chart helps immensely in the beginning as you learn shorthanded Texas holdem. Poker starting hand percentages allow you to see the hypothetical and theoretical strength of your hole cards against two to nine players. Basically, you should only play hands that are dark green, blue, or purple. Nick Koudis / Photodisc / Getty Images. In Texas hold'em, a hand such as A♥A♠ is an 82. Seat 1: Big Blind (BB) - This is the player who puts in the biggest ante aka the Big Blind. Take 1 away from that number, multiply those two numbers together and divide by 2. Anything from Ace to 10 can be classed as a high-value card in the most popular variants. Suited hands contain two cards of the same suit, like J♣9♣, A ♥ K ♥, K♠Q♠ and 9 ♦ 3 ♦. This unique Limit Texas Holdem Starting Hand simulator was originally developed with the playing strategies of poker pro Matthew Hilger based on his Starting Hand Chart here. The best hand that you can start out with is a pair of pocket rockets (Ace-Ace). the total is 1326. 1. You'll also make your post-flop decisions much easier and cut way down on the times you're putting. The game is $1/$2 No-Limit Texas Hold'em, the Chevy Cavalier of poker. At the start of each hand you need to be aware of where the dealer button is. You will play different hands from various starting positions. As you might expect, 6-Max poker games feature a maximum of six players at a table. Profitable Hole Cards in Texas Hold’em There are a total of 52 x 51 = 2’652 possible starting hands. The best starting hands in Texas Holdem are big pairs and big cards. 1) Top Pair vs Flush Draw or Straight Draw. Using our poker odds calculator engine, we first calculated the "fixed-preflop, post-river" winning probability of all 169 types of starting hands. For ALL Limit Texas Hold’em CASH GAME levels. . Exactly the kinds of players mentioned above. Ranking the best starting hands in Texas Holdem isn't as straightforward as some think. Odds are available for: Texas Holdem, Omaha , Omaha Hi-Lo, 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo and Razz. For example, it may show that a particular player has an 18 VPIP stat from the middle position. To get started, simply select your. A few card rooms offer spread limit Hold'em. 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. Starting Hands. About the Old Version. If you want to play a hand, your cards need to be strong enough to fight against your opponents' cards to win the pot. The best way to start winning at Texas Holdem poker quickly is learning the fundamentals of the tight and aggressive poker strategy. 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. A royal flush is the absolute best possible hand in the game of Texas Hold'em. TournamentTerminator. Each time cards are dealt (start, flop, turn, and river), players bet on winning the round with chips. . Queen-Queen. This means folding AJ in first position, KT in middle position and QT in late position. Pocket kings are the second best starting hand in Texas holdem. You'll get a few points from this combination, but not enough to make a. Many poker players value the AQs above J-J and 10-10 as they consider this poker hand to be the second-best drawing hand. One pair - two cards, same rank; Two pairs - two sets of two cards of the same rank. Royal Flush. Starting Hand Selection. A Texas Holdem Sit & Go tournament (SnG) is a tournament that is typically played on a single table. A steal is an open raise from the CO, BTN, or SB regardless of hand strength. What Are The Worst Starting Hands in Texas Hold’em Poker? Jordan C Jun 2, 2023 Table Of Contents Hand #1 - 72o; Hand #2 - 82o; Hand #3 - 92o; Hand #4 - T2o; Hand #5. You should start to play tighter from these seats, as you’re not always going to act last postflop. Pocket Ace; Two aces are by far the best starting hand for Texas Hold‘em. This 7 Card Stud poker strategy page has expert tips on basic starting hands, switching to 7 Card Stud from Hold’em, Limit vs Spread-Limit Stud & more. Start with 250,000 free poker chips and start playing online poker like a pro!. We provide insight into rules, strategy, lingo, variations of the game, tournament play, and more. The 19 starting hands are: All pocket pairs (that’s 13) AK. Learn the most important Stud strategy basics below. 1% of the deck. Ace-queen suited is another strong drawing hand. #2. The differences in the three types of Hold’em are only in the way you can bet your chips. Pocket Jacks (Fishhooks) – Many players claim paired jacks are the most difficult top 10 starting hand to play. They are not as strong as the very best starting hands but offer lots of straight and flush potential. This nifty little starting hands chart straight from the professionals themselves (slightly modified by me for this game specifically) should help you win more tournaments as long as you follow it. Texas Hold'em Poker Rules. Game conditions must always be taken into account. When you three-bet light you’re making a semi-bluff at the pot. For example, you might focus on raising the right hands preflop for a whole session.