- Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdem Tournaments
- Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdemhold Em
- Order Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdem
- Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdemem
- The 20 Best Starting Poker Hands. The best starting hands in Texas Holdem are big pairs and big cards. Of course, we all know the power of AA, KK and QQ, but JJ-TT are also premium hands. Some have a hate relationship with JJ and TT, but I love being dealt these.
- However, there are 1,326 different starting poker hands in Texas Holdem, and even 270,725 poker hand variations in Pot Limit Omaha. While there are many different starting hands options in various games, the winning hand is determined by poker hand rankings consisting only of 10 options.
- Poker is a game based on probability and so the statistics are clear cut when it comes to which are the best Texas Holdem starting hands. Everyone knows that pocket Aces is the strongest starting hand in Texas Holdem and that there aren’t many situations where you are going to fold these regardless of the situation.
Starting Hand Selection:Chen Formula : Sklansky Starting Hand Groups
The Sklansky & Malmuth starting hands table.
Group | Hands |
---|---|
1 | AA, AKs, KK, QQ, JJ |
2 | AK, AQs, AJs, KQs, TT |
3 | AQ, ATs, KJs, QJs, JTs, 99 |
4 | AJ, KQ, KTs, QTs, J9s, T9s, 98s, 88 |
5 | A9s - A2s, KJ, QJ, JT, Q9s, T8s, 97s, 87s, 77, 76s, 66 |
6 | AT, KT, QT, J8s, 86s, 75s, 65s, 55, 54s |
7 | K9s - K2s, J9, T9, 98, 64s, 53s, 44, 43s, 33, 22 |
8 | A9, K9, Q9, J8, J7s, T8, 96s, 87, 85s, 76, 74s, 65, 54, 42s, 32s |
9 | All other hands not required above. |
This table comes from the book Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth.
This is a strategy book for limit Hold'em, but the starting hand groups do have some practical use in no limit Hold'em.
Check out the hand rank FAQ to help answer questions you might have about the ranking of hands in Texas Hold'em. The hands are in order from top to bottom, decreasing in value as you move down. An ace-high straight flush. It's just a straight flush really, but it's made with the 5 highest value cards.
Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdem Tournaments
What is the Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table?
The table is a general ranking of hands in Texas Hold'em.
The Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table groups together certain hands in Texas Hold'em based on their strength. Starting with the strongest set of hands that you can be dealt in group 1, the hands get progressively weaker working down the table until the virtually unplayable hands in group 9.
The rough idea is that a hand in one group has roughly the same value and can be played the same way preflop as any other hand in that group.
How to use the starting hands table.
In their book, Sklansky and Malmuth provide some in-depth guidelines for starting hand strategy in limit Texas Hold'em using this table. Unfortunately, I'm not going to work out any guidelines for you for the NL Hold'em game using this table because:
Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdemhold Em
- It would be quite a tricky job.
- It would be difficult to remember and implement.
- Like any starting hand strategy, it would have its flaws.
- You should avoid using strict guidelines and set rules as much as possible during play.
So really there is not a lot to take away from this table from a purely strategic perspective. Nonetheless it's interesting to see how specific starting hands compare to one another based on their preflop value.
If you're really after a starting hand strategy guideline, try the Chen Formula.
Sklansky and Malmuth hand rankings evaluation.
Although it's a very popular hand group rankings table, it's not going to do you too much good to learn the whole thing off by heart. In my opinion, the real value of this table is being able to see how different starting hands can be grouped together and ranked based on their value before the flop.
Order Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdem
For other useful charts and tables, see the odds charts page from the Texas Hold'em tools section.
Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.
Ranking Of Best Starting Hands In Texas Holdemem
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