Texas Hold'em starting hands: which to play

The decision you make most often in Texas Hold'em comes before any card hits the table: play these two cards, or fold them. Get that one roughly right and everything after it is easier, because you'll be starting ahead more often than behind.

This is standard beginner advice, the kind most poker books open with, not something measured against KARDX's bots. It isn't the last word, and good players bend all of it. But it's a sound place to start, and at a friendly table it's enough to hold your own.

Most hands are a fold

There are 169 different starting hands, counting a pair of aces as one hand whatever the suits. Most of them are weak. Two cards that are low, far apart and different suits will usually lose, and they'll cost you chips finding out.

New players play too many hands. It's the most common mistake in the game and the easiest to fix. Play only the hands on this page and you'll fold about six times in seven. That's not timid. That's the game.

What makes two cards worth playing

Three things make two cards worth playing:

• A pair. Two of the same rank, like two queens.
• High cards. Aces, kings, queens and jacks. When you pair one, it's likely the best pair.
• Suited and connected. Two cards of one suit can make a flush. Two cards next to each other in rank can make a straight. Both at once is better.

Players call two cards of one suit suited and two of different suits offsuit. Suited is better, but by less than people think: ace-king suited beats a random hand about 67% of the time, and ace-king offsuit about 65%.

The hands, in four groups

Group 1: play them from any seat

The big pairs and ace-king. Raise with them. You'll be dealt one of these about once in 33 hands, so when one arrives, don't play it quietly.

Group 2: play them from most seats

Strong, but not strong enough to be happy about a big raise from someone else. Raise if nobody has yet. If someone has raised ahead of you, the pairs can call; let the others go more often than not.

Group 3: play them late, and cheaply

These hands usually miss the flop, and when they miss you fold. When they hit (a third card for your pair, a flush, a straight) they can win a big pot. So they're only worth it when getting in is cheap and you act late, after you've seen what the others do.

Group 4: fold

Everything else. That includes hands that look tempting: any ace with a low card of another suit, any two cards that merely share a suit, and a face card with a small one. They make second-best hands, and second best is the expensive place to finish.

The close calls are two big cards of different suits that aren't listed above, like ace-jack or king-jack. Plenty of players play them. While you're learning, you'll lose less by folding them, except from the button or the seat before it when nobody has come in yet: there they're worth a raise.

How often the good ones come

Those come from counting: there are 1,326 ways to be dealt two cards from a deck, and, for example, six of them are a pair of aces.

Read the table as a guide to patience. In 50 hands you'd expect a group 1 hand once or twice. The rest is folding, watching, and picking a few spots from groups 2 and 3.

Your seat changes the answer

Play passes around the table in a fixed order, and going later is an advantage: you've seen what everyone before you did. The same two cards are worth more in a late seat than an early one. Position in poker explains why, and how to tell where you are.

• Early, the first seats to act after the big blind: play group 1, and add group 2 when there are six players or fewer. Several players still get to act after you, and any of them could have something big.
• In between: groups 1 and 2.
• Late, the dealer button (D) and the seat before it: add group 3 when nobody has raised.
• In the blinds: you've already put chips in, so calling is cheaper. But you'll act before nearly everyone on every later round, which is the worst place to be. Don't defend a blind with a group 4 hand just because it's yours.

On a KARDX table the button sits beside a seat and moves on a seat each hand, so everyone spends time in the good seats and the bad ones.

The number of players changes it too

The more players in a hand, the better the hand it takes to win.

A pair of aces is the best starting hand there is. Against one player with random cards it wins about 85% of the time. Against five it wins about half the time. Against eight, about 35%. Still the favorite, but no longer a sure thing, which is why you raise with it: to get some of those players to fold.

It works the other way around as well. With only two or three players at the table, you can play more hands, because there are fewer people who might hold something better. At a full table, stick close to groups 1 and 2.

Five matchups worth knowing

When two players put all their chips in before the flop, these are roughly the odds. They're rounded, and they come from dealing each matchup out many thousands of times.

Two lessons are in there. First, being dominated, sharing a card with a hand whose other card is higher, is costly: ace-queen against ace-king is in far worse shape than it looks, which is why group 2 hands fold to big raises. Second, no hand is hopeless and no hand is safe. Any two cards can win one hand. It's over a whole night that the good starting hands pull ahead.

Playing them

• Raise, don't just call. If you're the first one in and your hand is worth playing, raise to about three times the big blind. Calling the big blind and hoping lets everyone in cheaply behind you. Poker betting rules covers how a raise works.
• Fold to a raise with group 3. Those hands need a cheap look at the flop. A raise makes it expensive.
• Let go after the flop. A good starting hand is a head start, not a promise. If you hold ace-king and the flop comes with three low cards, you have ace high.
• Don't fall for "any ace". An ace with a small card of a different suit wins small pots and loses big ones, because when an ace comes, someone with a better second card has you beaten.

Try it

Open a Texas Hold'em table, practice against bots and turn on Show odds on your phone: before the flop it gives a hint from a starting-hand chart for your seat (poker odds for beginners explains the rest of the odds row). On every hand, name your cards' group before you read the hint, and watch how the hint changes for the same hand as you move from early seats to the button.