1. Now, let's talk about starting hands in Texas Hold'em. Ranking The Top 20 No Limit Texas Hold’em Starting Hands. I wanted to include something a bit more exciting in this article, so here's the top 20 No Limit Hold'em starting hands in terms of raw all-in equity (or percentages).
2. Everyone knows that pocket aces are the best starting hand in a game of no limit texas holdem poker, but are you familiar with what the worst hands are? Join me as we go on a trip to the land of Texas Fold’em. 72 is the #1 worst hand of them all.

However, in this article I will just detail the ten best and the ten worst starting hands. The Ten Best Hands. If you want to be a great Texas Holdem Poker player, you need to know which hands you should play and which hands you should fold. The following is a list of the ten best starting hands and it is a good place to start your education.

The Strongest Poker Hands – Before and After the Flop

Before the flop is dealt, the strongest hands are easy to spot. Aces, Kings and Queens top the list – with Ace-King not far behind.

The relative strength of poker hands in Texas Hold’em changes as the community cards are dealt. While all sorts of starting hands can hit the flop, there are certain categories which are more likely to turn into hidden monsters.

This page covers the top 10 poker hands, before the flop – and then all the way to the river. This includes:

• Starting Hands: Top 10 hands that every play would love to be dealt before the flop
• Flop Betting: How the first 3 community cards have a huge effect on the ‘relative’ strength of the bet pre-flop hands.
• Turn and River: Draws can complete, or high cards can hit as the community card board is completed.
• Top Hands and Position: Why being dealt a top 10 poker hand alone is not enough to win big.
• How to Tell: If you can spot those times an opponent has a monster hand, you’ll be in a great position top get away from 2^nd best holdings.

Starting Hands: The Top 10 Hands Before the Flop

Pocket Aces rule the rankings before the flop. If you are dealt this hand, you’ll win 80% of the time against any single hand your opponent could hold by the river.

Here are the top 10 hands pre-flop in Texas Hold’em:

1. Pocket Aces: There is no better feeling in Hold’em than looking down at a pair of aces. Especially if there has been a raise ahead of you.
2. Pocket Kings: With aces so rare, it is usual to assume that your pocket kings are the best hand pre-flop. You can always reassess if you face multiple re-raises. With no aces on the flop, you can hope to win a big pot with this hand.
3. Pocket Queens: There is a risk that opponents have aces, kings or ace-king when you are dealt Queens. With no ‘card removal’ for those hands as when you are dealt A-A or K-K. Pocket Queens is still a very strong hand and should be played for a raise.
4. Ace-King: This hand is even stronger when suited, though plenty strong enough with just the high card value. If you make a pair on the flop, you will have the top kicker to go with your top-pair.
5. Pocket Jacks: As you get down the rankings, even strong starting hands start to become vulnerable to over-cards on the flop. Jacks are often good enough to win unimproved, though you need to be cautious when an ace hits the board.
6. Ace-Queen: Again, a suited version is much stronger than an unsuited one – as you’ll be able to make the nut flush on occasion. This hand becomes stronger if your opponents are prone to overplaying aces with weaker kickers.
7. Pocket 10’s: This is the last pocket pair which is more likely than not to be an over-pair on the flop. It has hidden value, blocking straights and allowing you to hit a set (as with all smaller pairs) on boards which look ‘safe’ for the higher pairs.
8. King Queen Suited: This hand has a lot of potential multi-way. Heads up against one of the premium hands, it does not do as well. If you find yourself with king-queen suited in position in a multi-way pot, you can often make a hidden monster and win a big pot.
9. Ace-Jack / Ace-Ten: These hands are vulnerable, though suited versions can make the nut flush, if you don’t make 2 pairs, there is always a chance of a Broadway straight.
10. Mid-Pairs: Finally, mid-pairs can make sets – giving them a lot of deceptive strength. When someone has aces, and bets strongly, you can often win their whole stack with a hidden pair or 7’s (for example).

Relative Strength of Poker Hands on Different Flops

Key to success in poker is not to get married to the top 10 starting hands after the flop. There are several factors to consider. While you can often assume that your premium starting hand is still best (and bet it accordingly), a clear assessment of the risks is always useful.

When you see a flop, think about the following:

• How many opponents saw this flop (what is the risk that some random hand connected!)?
• Does this flop have the potential to hit many drawing hands (straights and flushes)?
• Is this the type of flop that will not connect with hands my (tight) opponents are likely to play (low, unconnected flops fit this category)?
• Are there cards on the board which are higher than my pocket pair?

These questions highlight an error that many new players make with premium hands. If you limp or call, instead of raising with those aces – you can end up in a tricky spot. You could see a wet flop (lots of potential draws available) with multiple opponents who might have random holdings. If you have to act first in the betting, the situation looks even trickier. Here your hand is too strong to give up on, though if you get a lot of action on subsequent betting rounds, you could be in trouble!

Playing good hands strongly, and raising a few outside the top 5 for balance, is a great way to avoid too many tough spots on the flop.

Turn and River Cards: How Likely my Opponent Hit?

When the turn or river card completes a flush (for example) and your opponent comes out firing with a big bet, you need to ask yourself how often you are beaten.

The wrong question to ask here is ‘how often do players make flushes by the river?’. You have some additional information. If your opponent called a bet on the flop, or even raised, then they are likely to have some kind of hand. If they continued all the way, only to re-raise you at the end when their card hit – you might just be in trouble.

Getting ‘married’ to over-pairs can be expensive in these situations. What is demonstrates is that even the top 10 starting hands can be losers in certain run-outs. You’ll need to use your judgement to decide whether your opponent might be bluffing in the scenario above. This can be based on the player, their bet sizing in the hand and your history with that opponent. In my experience, players at the smallest stakes are not bluffing frequently enough in this type of spot to make this a profitable call.

Playing the Top 10 Poker Starting Hands in Position

With the dynamics or poker hand strength changing as the community cards come out, playing in position is a great way to optimise your profits. This simply refers to acting last in the betting on the flop, turn and river betting rounds. The player with the ‘Dealer’ button position acts last – though keep in mind that acting last relative to the raiser pre-flop is a different factor.

When you are last to act, you can get away from hands when there is a raise and a re-raise ahead of you. It is always an option to bet out and steal a pot you might otherwise have given up on when everyone checks to you as well.

Position strategy goes a lot deeper than this. When you are starting out, keep in mind that acting last + having a top 10 poker hand is the best spot to be in!

How to Tell If Your Top Hand is Beaten?

As you gain experience playing on different board-textures, and against different types of opponents – spotting those times when your pocket aces are second best becomes a lot easier.

While some opponents keep betting at any pot where they have a piece of the board (or a draw in some cases), other opponents are more cautious. If someone who usually limps and calls suddenly wakes up with big bets, this is a great sign that you could be beaten. I have seen opponents play passively for hours, and suddenly check-raise when they made the top flush. If you pay those types off, it is down to you not paying attention – rather than bad luck.

In the first part of the article we looked at Six plus Hand Rankings, where it became clear that the 16 cards missing from the deck in this variant leads to a slight, but important, changes in how strong the starting hands are which we will receive.

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Pocket Aces

If we look at traditional Texas Hold’em starting hands, we would expect to get our beloved AA about once every 221 hands, so what about in our new version of the game?

Well, without troubling you with the maths (I CAN do it, honestly!) the answer is you’ll get your pocket rockets once every 105 hands, which is more than twice as often as in Texas Hold’em!

Naturally, what goes for aces also goes for the other pairs – you’ll have a pocket pair more than twice as regularly in Six plus Hold’em (as will your opponent! Don’t forget this important consideration).

Are there any other changes we need to know about regarding starting hands?

Let's Say We have JJ

A naturally tricky starting hand in Texas Hold’em, but one we would probably open-raise with pre-flop. How does it fare in Six Plus?

We need to realize that instead of beating nine other pairs pre-flop, now it is only a favorite against 5, and still a dog to QQ, KK and AA. So it is not as strong in this respect.

However, because 3 of a kind now beats a straight in Six Plus, flopping a set becomes very strong against many hands – flushesare harder to come by, as we saw previously, because there are only nine cards of any single suit available in the deck.

So, how often will our smaller pairs flop a set? In Texas Hold’em it’s about 11.8% or roughly one time in eight. In Six Plus, we will do the maths quickly (just to prove I can!)

There are 36 cards in the pack, we have – let’s say again – JJ in our hand. So there are two jacks left in the 34 remaining cards.

What About the Hated 72 Offsuit?

In traditional Texas Hold’em this is the worst starting hand, and almost completely unplayable. Well, as you can probably work out yourself quite easily, in Six Plus the equivalent hand is J 6 offsuit, which, let’s be honest, would rarely be played even in our normal game!

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Playing AK Becomes an 'Interesting' Problem

Well, first off, we will be dealt AK about 2.5% of our hands – which is quite a lot of the time, maybe once every five or six rounds at a full ring table, so it’s important enough to learn its worth in Six Plus Hold’em.

If we accept that suited versions become a lot more valuable - flushes beat full houses in our new version - then it can also make sense to play AKs slower than usual. Mixing our game up with AKs hides our play better, while AKo is still a very strong hand which we can 3-bet and even consider stacking off with.

Small Pairs

Of course 66 now becomes the smallest pocket pair. In Texas Hold’em we could consider calling pre-flop raises with this hand if the price was right – flopping a set and cracking a higher pair is our main goal – but now we have to consider that we are essentially playing 22 in a game where set-over-set sees our 6’s screwed, although on the plus side they do now beat straights!

Relative Hand Values

We need to be aware that these change a fair bit from Texas Hold’em, since stronger hands in general are being played across the board. Top pair, top kicker is nowhere near as strong – in fact it is very unlikely to win on its own as a best hand at showdown in 6-max or full-ring when we play Six Plus Hold’em.

There is also the ‘alternative river version’ of the game to consider, when receiving an extra hole card means that hand strengths can become stronger still.

So, in general two pair would be a median winning hand at full-ring – a useful thing to know when planning your hand strategy!

We will look at the change in Pot Odds in part 3, but a casual glance at things like ‘drawing hands’ shows that we are more likely to his many of them, as we have fewer cards left containing the same number of outs. For example, a gutshot – where any of four cards hits for us – now gives us 4/31 chances to hit after the flop, as opposed to 4/47 in Texas Hold’em – a significant difference indeed!

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