Texas Holdem Starting hands
Starting standards
After you choose the best game and select the best available seat at that table, what’s important to winning play? Early decisions predicate subsequent choices, so deciding which hands to start with (your starting standards) is critically important. It’s only human nature to seek the best bang for the buck, and poker players are no different.
There are hands where the return on your investment is positive, and others that will prove costly in the long run. In the heat of battle, you don’t have the time to thoroughly assess your hand. You should have made these decisions long before you hit the table. That’s why standards are critical. If you incorporate solid starting standards into your game, you are light years ahead of any opponent who has not done this -never mind how long he’s been playing or how much experience he may have in other phases of the game.
Starting standards also provide a basis for deviation, but only under the right conditions. Those conditions are impossible to recognize – and capitalize on – unless you’ve developed standards and integrated them so completely into your game that they are second nature to you. Only when that’s accomplished can you hope to find those very few exceptions that allow you to profitably deviate from them.
Hand selection
Hand selection is one of the most important keys to winning. Most of us play too many hands. I’m not referring only to beginners. Some players have been at it for years, and the single most important flaw in their game is that they still play too many hands.
After all, the majority of poker players are recreational players. They’re not playing poker to make their living; they play to enjoy themselves – and much as they’d have you believe their goal in playing is to win money, that’s really secondary to their main objective: having fun.
The difference between a player who has come out to have fun and another who is playing to win money is that the recreational player will look for reasons to play marginal hands and to continue playing them even when subsequent betting round are fraught with danger. The money player will look for reasons to release hands, avoid unnecessary danger, and dump speculative hands whenever the potential reward is overshadowed by the risks.
Be aggressive, but be selective
Winning poker requires selectivity and aggression. Every top player knows that concept, and every credible poker book emphasizes it. If you have any doubts, consider the need to be selective. Picture someone who calls every hand down to the bitter end unless he sees that he is beaten on board. Her opponents would soon discover that it never pays to bluff her.
Of course, every time they had the smallest edge, they’d bet, knowing that she will call with the worst of it. These value bets would soon relieve our heroine of her bankroll. If selectivity is clearly correct, what about aggression? Consider the passive player. He seldom bets unless he has an unbeatable hand -and they don’t come around all that often. More often than not you’ll find yourself in pots where you believe, but aren’t absolutely certain, that you have the best hand. Even when you are 100 percent certain that yours is the best hand at the moment, you might recognize it as one that can be beaten if there are more cards to come.
This occurs more often than you might realize, and you can’t win at poker by giving your opponent a free card.
Patience
Patience is certainly related to the “be selective” portion of the “be aggressive, but be selective” mantra. Few players dispute the need to be selective. Nevertheless, most aren’t very selective about the hands they play. After all, poker is fun, and most aficionados come to play, not fold.
When the cards aren’t coming your way, it’s very easy to talk yourself into taking a flyer on marginal hands. But there’s usually a price to be paid for falling off the good-hands wagon. Sometimes it all boils down to a simple choice. You can have a lot of fun, gamble it up, and pay the inevitable price for your pleasure, or you can apply, the patience required to win consistently.
Types of Texas Holdem Hand
There are only 169 different two-card starting combination in Texas Holdem taking into consideration that KQ diamonds is equivalent to KQ clubs. If three diamonds were to appear on the flop, the KQ diamonds would be significantly valuable then KQ clubs. But the future can neither be predicted nor controlled and these two hands have identical value before the flop.
Each of these combinations only fit into 5 categores:
- Pairs
- Connecting Cards
- Gapped Cards
- Suited Connectors
- Suited Gapped Cards
Examples of connectors are K-Q, 8-7, and 4-3. Unconnected cards might me one-,two-,three-gapped, or more, and would include hands like K-J (one gap, with Q missing), 9-6(two gap,missing 7-8), or 9-3(five gap, missing 4-5-6-7-8)
Smaller gaps make more straights
Generally, the smaller the gap, the easier it is to make a striahgt. Suppose that you hold 10-6. Your only straight possibilty is 9-8-7. But if you hold 10-9, you can make a straight with K-Q-J, Q-J-8, J-8-7 and 8-7-6. A hand like A-K can only make one straight (Q-J-T) while A-2 needs to connect with 5-4-3.
Gapped cards, in general, are not as valuable as connectors because of their difficulty in completing straights. But if you were to make a flush there’s no need to be concerned about the gap. After all, a flush made with A-6 hearts is just as good as an A-K hearts flush. But A-K is more valuable for other reasons. Suppose that flush never comes. You can make a straight with A-K; you can’t with A-6 (unless four cards come on the board to help your straight). You might also win if you catch either an ace or a king. If an ace flops, you’ll have made a pair of aces with a 6 sidecard, or kicker, and could easily lose to.
Some starting hands are so strong they can be played in any position. You don’t get these hands very often, but when you do, you are generally a favorite from the get-go to win that pot.
Playable hands in early position
Pairs
- 7 pair – A pair
Suited
- Aces with a K,Q,J or 10
- King with an Q,J or 10
- Queen with an J or 10
- Jack with a 10 or 9
- 10 with a 9
Unsuited
- Aces with K, Q, J, T
- King with Q or J
Playable hands in middle position
Pairs
- 5s and 6s
Suited
- Ace with 9, 8, 7, 6
- King with a 9
- Queen with 9 or 8
- Jack with an 8
- 10 with an 8
- 9 with an 8
Unsuited
- King with a 10
- Queen with a J or 10
- Jack with a 10
Playable hands in late position
Pairs
- 4s, 3s, and 2s
Suited
- Aces with a 5,4,3, or 2
- King with an 8, 7, 6, 5,4, 3, or 2
- Jack with a 7
- 10 with a 7
- 9 with a 7 or 6
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- 7 with a 6 or 5
- 6 with a 5
- 5 with a 4
Unsuited
- King with a 9
- Queen with a 9
- Jack with a 9 or 8
- 10 with a 9 or 8
- 9 with an 8 or 7
- 8 with a 7
If you are new to the game, have been playing indiscriminately, or have an any-two cards can-win philosophy, you may believe these recommendations are too tight. They’re not. In fact, they are somewhat loose. A hand like K -2, while playable in late position, is a pretty sorry excuse for a Hold’em hand. If you flop a king and there’s any appreciable action, it’s fairly apparent that someone else has a king with a bigger kicker than yours. If you flop a 2, you’ve guaranteed yourself the lowest pair on board. Even if you are incredibly lucky and flop a flush, there’s no assurance that it is the best flush.