Starting Hand Selection - Texas Hold'em

Starting hand selection, the most important poker skill

One of the most important skills for a poker player is selection of starting hands. What we mean is: which hands should you enter a pot with and which ones should you discard. The number of really playable hands in Texas Hold'em is limited. With a good knowledge of the best ones and a little patience, you'll be able to improve your game a lot.

For the purpose of this article, we'll only cover the best starting hands. These are the hands suggested for poker beginners. A wider variety of hands can be chosen as your skill increases.

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Special Hands (Monsters)

The special hands (monster hands or premium hands) are the most powerful hands in Texas Holdem. These hands will win consistently and keep you ahead of your opponents. The special hands, listed in order of strength, are:

• Pair of Aces (AA)
• Pair of Kings (KK)
• Pair of Queens (QQ)
• Ace and King (same suit or not) (AKs or AKo)
• Pair of Jacks (JJ)

These are the most powerful starting hands, and are generally playable from any position at the table (but be careful when playing with a pair of jacks in early positions). Although they are strong hands, it's worth keeping a close eye on the action of opponents in better positions.

The hands in this section should be played aggressively. You should try to reduce the number of opponents, because in a pot with many players, the chance of winning decreases. We suggest betting or raising (raise or re-raise) from any position, being more cautious with JJ.

Excellent hands

This group of hands is also powerful, but may not be indicated in every situation as in the case of the special hands. The excellent hands, in order of strength, are:

• Pair of Ten (TT)
• Pair of Nines (99)
• Pair of Eights (88)
• Ace and Queen (with or without same suit) (AQs or AQo)
• Pair of Sevens (77)

These hands are certainly playable in the middle and late positions, but careful evaluation and knowledge of the opponents are required to play them in the early positions. The strategy with these hands is also to be aggressive before the flop, with the aim of limiting your opponents. If your hand is a pair of sevens or eights, and you're against one opponent, you're probably ahead. Against multiple opponents, your chances are greatly reduced, and you'll probably need to improve to three of a kind if you want to win the round.

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Other Useful Hands

This group of hands includes those that you should have in your arsenal as you become more experienced in the game. Hands like KQ of the same suit or not and pairs below seven belong to this group. The most important thing when playing these hands is not to enter the pot if you're in bad position (early position), and to know how to let go if you don't make a good play on the flop. Low peers don't usually succeed without improving.

• King and Queen (KQs or KQo)
• Pair of Two (22)
• Pair of Three (33)
• Pair of Four (44)
• Pair of Five (55)
• Pair of Sixes (66)
• Ace and a card lower than Queen of the same suit (AXs)

Trap hands

Avoid playing with these hands as much as possible. These are common mistakes made by beginners.

Lone ace (Ax)for example A3, A6... - dangerous hands. If you have a full pair of aces at the table, your kicker is very low, with a high chance of being beaten by someone with a higher kicker. The same goes for the lone king (Kx).

Nailed handsa hand with two cards of the same suit is only 3% better than the same hand but of different suits. Suited hands only complete the flush 6% of the time. So playing hands like 72s, 94s, just because they're the same suit, is a big mistake. What's more, if you make a flush and an opponent has a bigger one, you'll lose a lot of chips.

ConnectorsThese are hands that look nice, like "23", "45", but in practice win pots in a small percentage. They are hands to be played by those who are more experienced, only in good positions, and knowing how to let go if they don't make good plays on the flop.

Conclusions

The most important idea to remember is to play quality starting hands according to your position. If you become a master of hand selection and manage to maintain your discipline, you'll be better off than the vast majority of online Texas Hold'em players.

Have a good idea of the value of your position at the poker table is a key factor in determining whether your hand is good enough. There are hands that can be folded in first position, but can be raised when on the button (e.g. 77, QJ, among others).

Another important factor is number of opponents. The more people active in the round, the less chance your hand has of winning.

In conclusion, if you have the feeling that your starting hand is weak and that you shouldn't enter the round, you're probably right. Discard and wait for a really playable hand!

Observations

• It's important to say that in this article we're talking about full tables, about nine or ten players. At tables with fewer opponents, the selection of hands starts to become more liberal, and hands such as low connectors of the same suit (e.g. 56s) or medium connectors of different suits (e.g. 9To) start to become reasonable options.
• Another situation in which it pays to be liberal is when you play with several opponents already in the hand. Example: you're on the dealer button, and 5 players have already entered the hand with the minimum bet. In this case, more "speculative" hands start to have value, as the odds are very favorable. We'll talk more about this reasoning in intermediate and advanced articles.

Article glossary

Card codesWe use internationally recognized codes for the cards in our articles. AKs stands for "suited" Ace and King, i.e. of the same suit. AQo means Ace and Queen "off-suit", i.e. of different suits. Ax means Ace and any other low card. T stands for "10".