Ranking Of Starting Poker Hands

Posted on 4/10/2022 by admin

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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. When is the kicker used to determine the winning poker hand? When you first start playing poker it’s important that you are quickly able to recall hand rankings and the strength of the hand you’ve been dealt. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do so, as highlighted in this complete guide to the 10 strongest poker hands, with their rankings listed in order from highest to lowest.

Martin Harris

The fact is, hold’em starting hands are a whole lot better if suited. I’ll bet I know how the misconception came about. A few players began to use computers to put a hand like. A♣ K♠ heads up against two random cards. It won about 65 percent of the time Then they changed the hand to. A♣ K♣ and ran that against two random cards. Poker Starting Hands - Comprehensive guide to which poker hands you should play, including a 2020 Texas Hold'em poker starting hands chart.

For a certain segment of new hold’em players, starting hand charts can be fascinating. Even those with many years of experience who have little need to consult such charts still find them interesting as debate-starters.

In hold’em there are 169 different combinations of hands you can be dealt. For those of us who enjoy working with numbers or creating lists with which to organize our lives, there’s something appealing about the idea of ranking all of those hands from 1 to 169, even if we know such a list probably might have only limited value when it comes to actual game play.

In truth, there are actually a lot more possible combinations of hole cards in hold’em — 1,326 of them, in fact. But that total also considers suits as distinct, when in fact before the community cards come the suits are all essentially of equal value.

That is to say, is of the same value as when playing preflop, while and are also of equivalent value. So, too, are the different combinations producing the same pocket pairs all equal before the flop in terms of their relative worth. While there are six different ways to get pocket aces — , , , , , — you're equally happy no matter what suits the cards are.

So we get rid of all of those redundant hands and say that in Texas hold'em there are 169 “non-equivalent” starting hands, breaking them down as follows:

So in this article I am going to break down the top 10 best poker starting hands so that you can finally start playing in the most profitable way. The Two Absolute Best Poker Starting Hands in 2020 Now despite what some people might think there are actually two poker starting hands that tower above all others in terms of profitability.

13 pocket pairs
78 non-paired suited hands (e.g., with two cards of the same suit like or )
78 non-paired unsuited hands (e.g., with two cards of different suits like or )

Notice now the non-paired combinations of hole cards neatly divide into equal groups, both of which are six times as large (78) as the smaller group of pocket pairs (13). The total of 169 combinations represents a square, too — 13 x 13 — another curious symmetry when it comes to hold'em hands.

Still, that’s a lot of starting hand combinations — too many for most of us humans to keep in our heads — which is one reason hand ranking charts are appealing and even can be useful, since they help players think about certain two-card combos as “strong” or “average” or “weak” as possible starters.

Setting aside the idea of actually ranking the 169 hands from best to worst, we might think for a moment about other ways of categorizing starting hands in hold’em, using that initial breakdown of hands into pocket pairs, non-paired suited hands, and non-paired unsuited hand as a first step toward coming up with further, smaller groups that are easier to remember.

The 13 pocket pairs we might group as big or “premium” (, , and ), medium ( through ), and small ( through ).

Meanwhile, we might divide each of the other groups into “connectors,” “one-gappers,” and “two-gappers” (and so on), further thinking of them also as “big,” “medium,” and “small” while also keeping separate suited and non-suited combinations.

These categories of non-paired hands are created by thinking about straight-making possibilities (affected by connectedness) and flush-making possibilties (affected by suitedness). There are more ways to make straights with “connectors” — that is, two cards of consecutive rank like — than with two-gappers, three-gappers, and so on. So, too, do you have a better chance of making a flush with suited hole cards than with non-suited hole cards.

Another possible group to create would include “ace hands” — i.e., non-paired hands containing one ace — that can be thought of as “big aces” (e.g., , ), “medium aces” ( down to ), and “small aces” ( to ). Or “king hands,” too. We like keeping these groups in mind, as hands with big cards like an ace or king can connect with flops to make big pairs.

In any case, you can see how these criteria for making categories can help when it comes to building those starting hand charts. And in fact most of those charts feature a similar ordering of hands, with...

the premium pocket pairs and the big aces (suited and non-suited) up at the top;
medium and small pocket pairs and big-to-medium suited connectors and one-gappers in the middle;
and non-paired hands with less potential to make big pairs, straights, or flushes toward the bottom.

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However, there are problems with relying so heavily on starting hand charts that you don’t take into account factors that can make a given hand gain or lose value. Such as the flop. Or the turn. Or the river. Or other factors — including how your opponents are playing their hands — that can quickly affect the value of your starting hands.

After all, as anyone who’s played even a few hands of hold’em well knows, even if is the highest-ranking starting hand and a non-suited ranks as 169th, a couple of deuces among the community cards is all it takes to make the best hand worst and the worst hand best.

Learning the relative value of starting hands is definitely an important first step when it comes to getting started in hold’em. Other aspects of game play such as the importance of position, knowing when and how much to bet or raise, and thinking about opponents’ holdings and playing styles as hands proceed are good to learn, too, and help show how a great starting hand might not be so great five community cards later.

Poker is not blackjack, a game in which similar hand-ranking guides are sometimes used to inform players’ decisions about how to play. In poker you want to be wary about becoming too reliant on those pretty starting hand charts. They can be great for indicating which hands might be worth playing (and which should be thrown away), but troublesome if allowed to outweigh all of the other important factors that arise as a hand plays out.

That said, starting hand charts can be useful, especially for those new to hold’em. They also can be a big help when picking up other games, too, like pot-limit Omaha or the various stud games, if only to get an early idea what hands tend to play better than others.

But for many such charts ultimately are only themselves a way to get started, before the experience of playing helps players more instinctively recognize both hand groupings and how hands tend to compare in terms of profitability.

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Below is the complete guide for determining how to rank various poker hands. This article covers all poker hands, from hands in standard games of poker, to lowball, to playing with a variety of wild cards. Scroll to the end to find an in-depth ranking of suits for several countries, including many European countries and North American continental standards.

Standard Poker Rankings

A standard deck of cards has 52 in a pack. Individually cards rank, high to low:

Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

In standard poker (in North America) there is no suit ranking. A poker hand has 5 cards total. Higher ranked hands beat lower ones, and within the same kind of hand higher value cards beat lower value cards.

#1 Straight Flush

In games without wild cards, this is the highest ranking hand. It consists of five cards in sequence of the same suit. When comparing flushes, the hand with the highest value high card wins. Example: 5-6-7-8-9, all spades, is a straight flush. A-K-Q-J-10 is the highest ranking straight flush and is called a Royal Flush. Flushes are not permitted to turn the corner, for example, 3-2-A-K-Q is not a straight flush.

#2 Four of a Kind (Quads)

A four of a kind is four cards of equal rank, for example, four jacks. The kicker, the fifth card, may be any other card. When comparing two four of a kinds, the highest value set wins. For example, 5-5-5-5-J is beat by 10-10-10-10-2. If two players happen to have a four of a kind of equal value, the player with the highest ranking kicker wins.

#3 Full House (Boat)

A full house consists of 3 cards of one rank and 2 cards of another. The three cards value determines rank within Full Houses, the player with the highest rank 3 cards wins. If the three cards are equal rank the pairs decide. Example: Q-Q-Q-3-3 beats 10-10-10-A-A BUT 10-10-10-A-A would beat 10-10-10-J-J.

#4 Flush

Any five cards of the same suit. The highest card in a flush determines its rank between other flushes. If those are equal, continue comparing the next highest cards until a winner can be determined.

#5 Straight

Five cards in sequence from different suits. The hand with the highest ranking top card wins within straights. Ace can either be a high card or low card, but not both. The wheel, or the lowest straight, is 5-4-3-2-A, where the top card is five.

#6 Three of a Kind (Triplets/Trips)

A three of a kind is three card of equal rank and two other cards (not of equal rank). The three of a kind with the highest rank wins, in the event they are equal, the high card of the two remaining cards determines the winner.

#7 Two Pairs

A pair is two cards that are equal in rank. A hand with two pairs consists of two separate pairs of different ranks. For example, K-K-3-3-6, where 6 is the odd card. The hand with the highest pair wins if there are multiple two pairs regardless of the other cards in hand. To demonstrate, K-K-5-5-2 beats Q-Q-10-10-9 because K > Q, despite 10 > 5.

#8 Pair

A hand with a single pair has two cards of equal rank and three other cards of any rank (as long as none are the same.) When comparing pairs, the one with highest value cards wins. If they are equal, compare the highest value oddball cards, if those are equal continue comparing until a win can be determined. An example hand would be: 10-10-6-3-2

#9 High Card (Nothing/No Pair)

If your hand does not conform to any of the criterion mentioned above, does not form any sort of sequence, and are at least two different suits, this hand is called high card. The highest value card, when comparing these hands, determines the winning hand.

Low Poker Hand Ranking

In Lowball or high-low games, or other poker games which lowest ranking hand wins, they are ranked accordingly.

A low hand with no combination is named by it’s highest ranking card. For example, a hand with 10-6-5-3-2 is described as “10-down” or “10-low.”

Ace to Five

The most common system for ranking low hands. Aces are always low card and straights and flushes do not count. Under Ace-to-5, 5-4-3-2-A is the best hand. As with standard poker, hands compared by the high card. So, 6-4-3-2-A beats 6-5-3-2-A AND beats 7-4-3-2-A. This is because 4 < 5 and 6 < 7.

The best hand with a pair is A-A-4-3-2, this is often referred to as California Lowball. In high-low games of poker, there is often a conditioned employed called “eight or better” which qualifies players to win part of the pot. Their hand must have an 8 or lower to be considered. The worst hand under this condition would be 8-7-6-5-4.

Duece to Seven

The hands under this system rank almost the same as in standard poker. It includes straights and flushes, lowest hand wins. However, this system always considers aces as high cards (A-2-3-4-5 is not a straight.) Under this system, the best hand is 7-5-4-3-2 (in mixed suits), a reference to its namesake. As always, highest card is compared first. In duece-to-7, the best hand with a pair is 2-2-5-4-3, although is beat by A-K-Q-J-9, the worst hand with high cards. This is sometimes referred to as “Kansas City Lowball.”

Ace to Six

This is the system often used in home poker games, straights and flushes count, and aces are low cards. Under Ace-to-6, 5-4-3-2-A is a bad hand because it is a straight. The best low hand is 6-4-3-2-A. Since aces are low, A-K-Q-J-10 is not a straight and is considered king-down (or king-low). Ace is low card so K-Q-J-10-A is lower than K-Q-J-10-2. A pair of aces also beats a pair of twos.

In games with more than five cards, players can choose to not use their highest value cards in order to assemble the lowest hand possible.

Hand Rankings with Wild Cards

Wild cards may be used to substitute any card a player may need to make a particular hand. Jokers are often used as wild cards and are added to the deck (making the game played with 54 as opposed to 52 cards). If players choose to stick with a standard deck, 1+ cards may be determined at the start as wild cards. For example, all the twos in the deck (deuces wild) or the “one-eyed jacks” (the jacks of hearts and spades).

Wild cards can be used to:

substitute any card not in a player’s hand OR
make a special “five of a kind”

Five of a Kind

Five of a Kind is the highest hand of all and beats a Royal Flush. When comparing five of a kinds, the highest value five cards win. Aces are the highest card of all.

The Bug

Some poker games, most notably five card draw, are played with the bug. The bug is an added joker which functions as a limited wild card. It may only be used as an ace or a card needed to complete a straight or a flush. Under this system, the highest hand is a five of a kind of aces, but no other five of a kind is legal. In a hand, with any other four of a kind the joker counts as an ace kicker.

Wild Cards – Low Poker

During a low poker game, the wild card is a “fitter,” a card used to complete a hand which is of lowest value in the low hand ranking system used. In standard poker, 6-5-3-2-joker would be considered 6-6-5-3-2. In ace-to-five, the wild card would be an ace, and deuce-to-seven the wild card would be a 7.

Lowest Card Wild

Home poker games may play with player’s lowest, or lowest concealed card, as a wild card. This applies to the card of lowest value during the showdown. Aces are considered high and two low under this variant.

Double Ace Flush

This variant allows the wild card to be ANY card, including one already held by a player. This allows for the opportunity to have a double ace flush.

Natural Hand v. Wild Hand

There is a house rule which says a “natural hand” beats a hand that is equal to it with wild cards. Hands with more wild cards may be considered “more wild” and therefore beat by a less wild hand with only one wild card. This rule must be agreed upon before the deal begins.

Incomplete Hands

If you are comparing hands in a variant of poker which there are less than five cards, there are no straights, flushes, or full houses. There is only four of a kind, three of a kind, pairs (2 pairs and single pairs), and high card. If the hand has an even number of cards there may not be a kicker.

Examples of scoring incomplete hands:

10-10-K beats 10-10-6-2 because K > 6. However, 10-10-6 is beat by 10-10-6-2 because of the fourth card. Also, a 10 alone will beat 9-6. But, 9-6 beats 9-5-3, and that beats 9-5, which beats 9.