Premium starting hands in Texas Hold'em
Pocket aces is the best starting hand in poker. When you're dealt pocket aces you've got the best hand pre-flop, period. One of the best things about pocket aces is that you dominate other strong starting hands like KK, QQ and JJ so there's huge potential to win a massive pot. At the begging of each round of Texas Hold 'Em poker, you are dealt two cards. These are your hole cards or starting hand. Those hole cards can eventually be used with the cards revealed in the flop, turn and river to assemble a (hopefully) winning hand. After you are dealt your starting cards, there is a round of betting.
You've learned about the poker hand hierarchy and you've got the basic rules of the game down pat! The next thing you need to build more confidence at the table is the knowledge of which hands you should start out playing.
Premium Starting Hands
It's your turn to bet and now you're wondering if your hand is strong enough to justify a call or raise, or maybe you should fold? Below are the generally accepted, top ten starting hole card hands in Texas Hold'em poker. They are considered premium hole cards and are potential hand-winning cards. With these cards, you will certainly want to play the hand, but be sure to consider your position on the table.
- Hitting a big hand on the flop in Hold'em is always going to be great fun (especially on the flop), and you probably think that you don't need any advice on how to play a big hand. However, whilst it going to be difficult to end up losing money, it is good to know how to make the most of the situation to try and extract as much money from your.
- Texas Hold'em is always a game you should play with the long term in mind, if your poker hand has a 55/45 advantage compared to your opponents, you can lose it 10 times in a row. But if you play the hand 10,000 times on average you will win 55% (5.500) times.This is why good bankroll management is important. A quick test of your poker skills.
Pocket Aces (Bullets) – Considered the best starting hole cards in Hold'em, AA are playable from any position.
Pocket Kings (Cowboys) – Considered the second best starting hole cards, KK are playable from any position.
Pocket Queens (Ladies) – Great strength pre-flop but becomes difficult to play post-flop when over-cards hit.
AKs(uited) (Big Slick) – This is the fourth strongest starting hand, even against KK and is a significant favorite against the rest.
AQs(uited) (Little Slick) – This hand is strong but can easily be dominated in typical all-in pre-flop scenarios.
Pocket Jacks (Fishhooks) – Many players claim paired jacks are the most difficult top 10 starting hand to play. While being one of the top 10 best starting hand, JJ versus AA-QQ and AKo-AQs is vulnerable.
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KQs(uited) (Royal Couple) –While this hand is best suited to make straights and flushes, it can put you in difficult positions when flopping top pair, as you quite possibly will not have the best kicker.
AJ (Ajax) – These hole cards can be difficult to play from early position because you will never get folds from better aces, and you won't get the value of a top pair. However, it does have value in its ability to make the nut straight or flush.
AKo(ff-suit) (Big Ugly) – The strongest unsuited, non-pair. This hand is easy to overplay and over value in tournaments and in ring games.
TT (TNT) – Extremely strong vs two random cards, yet as with JJ, it can be difficult to play.
Printable Texas Hold'em Poker Hands
Now that you're familiar with the basic rules and best hands of poker, betting, position and premium starting hands, you're ready to take a seat and begin your poker adventure!
Texas Hold'em is undoubtedly the world's most popular poker variant. This fast, action-packed casino game can be played at land-based casinos and online at Borgata. Hold'em, as some call it, is a game of skill and making money out of it starts with having a solid understanding of the different hands and knowing how to play them.
Understanding Poker Hand Notation
Before we can get started with the opening hand recommendations in Hold'em, let's first start by looking at the hand notation in online poker games.
In poker variants, including Hold'em, there are symbols used to describe the diverse hands available. There's no need to worry as these are pretty simple and straightforward. Below are the different annotations you will find:
· S – suited cards
· O – two cards from different suits (unsuited)
· + – means all hands ranking above the stated hand are included
For instance, 77+ indicates a pair of sevens and any other pairs ranking above it such as 88, 99, TT, AA. Pairs such as 22, 33, 44, 55 and 66s would be excluded. The same applies to connectors, the + symbol means that similar hands using higher cards are included eg. T7 (Ten-Seven) would include T8, T9, JT (Jack-Ten), QJ (Queen-Jack) KQ (King-Queen) and AK (Ace-King).
If symbols that denote suited and unsuited cards are not available, then it's not important if the cards are suited or not.
5 Best Texas Hold'em Starting Hands
Texas Hold'em poker has 169 different two-card opening hand combinations. The notion is that if your starting hand is not a pair, then you will be dealt either connected or unconnected cards or a hand that's either suited or offsuit. Suited hands have cards of the same suit e.g. A♥5 ♥, whereas unsuited cards belong to different suits K♠10♦. On the other hand – no pun intended – unconnected cards will have one, two, three or more gaps (T72) making it difficult to hit a straight hand, and connected cards vice versa (T89).
1. Pairs: A♣ A♥, K♠ K♦, 7♥ 7♠
2. Suited Connectors: K♦A♦, J ♣ Q♣, 10 ♥9 ♥
3. Offsuit Connectors: 4♣ 3♦, 9♥ 8, 10♠ J♣
4. Suited Gappers: 10 ♥8 ♥, 5 ♠2♠, K♦J♦
5. Unconnected Cards: 8♦3♠, 10 ♥6 ♣, Q♣ 10♦
Moreover, it is also important to familiarize yourself with the different rankings of Texas Hold'em handsto know which are worth playing, and how they change according to your position on the table at an online casino. For instance, cards such as 7♦ 2♥ or 9♥ 4♠ are very weak to even consider past the flop. Whereas, strong hands such as A♣, A♦, 10♥ 10♦ and K♠ K♥ should always be played from any position. A three of a kind always wins to a two pair, and a flush always beats a straight.
How to Play
In Hold'em poker, players need to make the best 5-card hand possible using their two hole cards and five community cards on the table. Besides your position, you will need to consider other factors such as the number of players on the table as well as their playing style when deciding on placing your wager preflop.
Below is a quick summary of the basic Texas Hold'em rules:
- When the game begins, all players on the table are dealt two hole cards (also known as pocket cards) face-down. This means no other players can see your cards.
- Thereafter comes the Flop betting round, which consists of 3 community cards dealt face-up for players to use.
- The dealer will then deal the fourth card, known as the Turn.
- The Turn is followed by the River, which is the fifth and last community card.
- Players get to bet, check or fold as the betting rounds take place.
Pocket Pairs
Aces – a pair of Aces is by far the best starting hand in Hold'em. However, if nothing improves from the community cards you only have a pair. It is quite rare, however, to ever go wrong with this hand preflop.
Kings – a pair of Kings are almost as good as a pair of Aces preflop. However, it is not very often that you get dealt any of them. Although they are premium preflop holdings, they don't play too well against multiple opponents. Sometimes it is better to raise preflop to avoid having sets of pairs.
Queens and Jacks – these are middle pocket pairs, and with either of them, you should be confident that you have a good starting hand. They are very foldable preflop, but they can also be the trickiest hands to play. Other pocket pairs falling under this range include 55 through 99.Low pairs – these are hands below 55, all the way down to 22. It is not a wise move to raise first on low pairs, but they tend to be profitable at a later position and likely to result in a three of a kind or even great, a four of a kind which pays even more.
Suited Cards
Starting with two suited cards is good to score a flush or even better, a straight flush in this online casino game. However, the odds of getting a flush with two suited hands during the flop are as low as 0.8%. You are more likely to get a flush after the river and at only around 6.5% of the time, and a straight flush with a much lesser probability.
Connectors – Suitedconnectors include a combination of Aces and Kings, which is a premium hand suitable to play from any position, as well as good hands like T9, KQ, JT and QJs which are also great to play from most positions on the table.
54s and 76s are lower suited cards that should be folded from an early position and playable as a raise first from late positions.
Gappers – suited one-gappers have the potential to win big pots if they connect with the board. For instance, if you have a T8 then a 9 and other corresponding cards appear in the community cards, you win. Big gappers are far more unlikely to win but are playable from a late position.
Conclusion
Using the guidelines laid out in this article, together with a Texas Hold'em starting hands chart is a great way to enhance your playing skills. The more you Hold'em the more you will start opening a diverse range of starting hands – there are a whole lot of them, as already mentioned. Borgata offers the best poker and other entertaining online casino games for you to enjoy. Get started on making better Hold'em opening hands on BorgataOnline today!
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