Poker starting hands

The first decision in every hand of Texas Hold'em is whether your two cards are worth playing at all. This guide shows how many different starting hands there are, how often each one comes, how strong they are against each other, and why being suited and where you sit change the answer. Every figure here is exact, counted over every possible deal.

169 hands, 1,326 deals

A deck has 52 cards, so there are 1,326 different pairs of cards you can be dealt. For deciding what to play, the suits themselves don't matter, only whether your two cards share one. That leaves 169 starting hands, in three kinds:

• Pocket pairs, two cards of the same rank, such as a pair of sevens, written 77.
• Suited hands, two ranks in the same suit, such as ace-king of hearts, written AKs.
• Offsuit hands, two ranks in different suits, written AKo.

A ten is written T, so a pair of tens is TT and jack-ten suited is JTs.

Ways each: how many deals give one hand of that kind. A pair of sevens is any two of the four sevens, which can be picked in 6 ways; ace-king suited comes in 4 suits; ace-king offsuit in 12 mixes of suits.

That last column is the first lesson: offsuit hands are three times as common as the same two ranks suited, and most of what you're dealt is offsuit.

How often you get them

Good hands are rare, which is exactly why patience pays:

• Any pocket pair: 5.9%, about 1 in 17 hands.
• One particular pair, such as pocket aces: 1 in 221 hands.
• Ace-king, suited or not: 1 in 83 hands, and only 1 in 332 suited.
• Aces, kings, queens or ace-king: 2.6%, about 1 in 39 hands.

Most of the time you'll be looking at something like nine-four offsuit, and folding it is the right play. A player who waits for strong hands isn't being timid: they're playing the hands that win.

What makes two cards strong

One way to compare hands is to deal one against a random hand and run out every possible board. The share of pots it wins, counting a split as half, is its equity. These are the ten strongest of the 169 by that measure:

Wins: the share of all boards and opponent hands that this hand wins against one random hand, splits counted as half.

Four things make a hand strong, roughly in this order:

1. A pair. You start with something made. Even the smallest pair, twos, wins 50.3% against a random hand.
2. High cards. When neither player improves, the higher card wins, and a high pair beats a low one. Ace-king offsuit, with no pair yet, wins 65.3%.
3. Suited. A little more chance of a flush. Smaller than it looks: see the next section.
4. Connected. Cards close in rank, such as eight-seven, can make more straights.

Pairs fall away faster than you might expect. Aces win 85.2%, but by tens the figure is 75.0% and twos are only just ahead of a random hand. Ace-king offsuit is 12th of the 169, ahead of 5 of the 13 pairs.

These figures are a hand against one random hand. Real opponents don't play random hands: the players who stay in usually hold something, and the more of them there are, the more a hand needs to be strong rather than merely better than average.

Suited cards matter less than you think

Beginners love suited cards, because a flush feels close. It usually isn't: two suited cards make a flush by the river only 6.4% of the time. Here is what being suited adds to the same two ranks against a random hand:

Across all 78 pairs of ranks, being suited adds 2.8% on average. That's worth having, and it can turn a hand that's close into one worth playing, but it never turns a bad hand into a good one. Seven-two suited still wins only 38.2%.

There's a second catch: when your flush comes in with small cards, someone holding a bigger card in the same suit can have a bigger flush. Suited aces avoid that problem, which is why they're valued above other suited hands.

Head to head before the flop

When two players are all in before the flop, the cards decide the rest. These are classic matchups, each counted over every possible board:

Win: each hand's share of the pot over every board, splits counted as half.

Three patterns are worth remembering:

• A bigger pair is a big favourite over a smaller one, about 83% to 17%. The smaller pair needs a third card of its rank.
• A pair against two higher cards is close. People call it a coin flip, though the pair is a little ahead: queens win 57% against ace-king, and even twos win 53%.
• Sharing a card is the worst spot of all. Ace-queen against ace-king wins only 26%: when an ace comes, both pair it and the king still plays. A hand caught like this is dominated.

Two hands with the same ranks, such as ace-king of hearts against ace-king of spades, split the pot 85.7% of the time; the rest goes to whoever makes a flush.

Your seat changes the answer

The same two cards are worth more in some seats than others, for one reason: how many players are still to act after you. Before the flop, the first player to act, under the gun, has 8 players behind them at a full table of nine, and any of them could wake up with a strong hand. On the button only 2 are left to act, the two blinds, and you'll act last on every round after the flop.

Players still to act before the flop when everyone before you has folded, at a table of nine and a table of six.

So the usual advice is to play only your strongest hands from the early seats and open up as you get closer to the button: the fewer players left to act, the less likely one of them holds something better, and the more often you'll be acting last. The blinds are the exception: they get a discount because they've already put chips in, but after the flop they act before everyone else for the rest of the hand. Our guide to playing in position explains why acting last is worth so much.

We don't print a chart of exactly which hands to play from each seat. Good charts depend on the game, the stacks and the players, and the ones that matter come from solving the game, which is work in progress for the later stages of our learning path. For a sense of scale, the 20 strongest hands by the measure above make up only 9.8% of all deals.

Common mistakes

• Playing any ace. Ace-two is fine against a random hand: it even wins 58% against king-queen. But the players who call a raise often hold a better ace, and against ace-king it wins only 26%.
• Playing any two suited cards. Being suited is worth 2.8% on average, not a reason to play on its own.
• Calling raises with small pairs just to hit a set. A pocket pair makes three of a kind on the flop 11.8% of the time, 1 in 8.5. It only pays when there's a lot to win when it does.
• Falling in love with ace-king. It's a strong hand, but without a pair it's still only ace high. It pairs one of its cards on the flop only 32.4% of the time.
• Ignoring your seat. A hand worth playing on the button can be a fold under the gun.

Want to see the numbers for your own hand? Put any two cards and a board into the hand analyzer to see your best hand, your outs and your chance to improve. For the maths of draws and calling bets, read poker odds and outs.

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