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There is a heated debate between those poker authors who focus on playing premium starting hands and those who consider the importance of starting hands to be overestimated. In fact, it's important to choose a good starting hand, which will be half the battle. Texas Hold'em poker has a limited number of different hole-card combinations ' about 169, which separates the game from other poker games. So basically these starting hands are mostly discussed in strategy guides.
When learning to play poker, first of all you should have an idea of what hands you'd better start with and which starting hands should be folded preflop. Starting hands are divided into categories including Ace, King and Queen high hands. Let's discuss some of good starting hands, detailing only the highest ones. Here is the list.
AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AK, JJ ' These hands are premium and you should be happy if you have them. The category the hands are included in is called Big Pairs, which means you will raise and reraise with them preflop. If you have AA there is no problem with over cards hitting. However, you may end up finding yourself with an A on the board when getting KK, QQ and JJ. Should you continue playing? That depends on the amount of players at the table. In case there are a lot of people, usually someone has the A. Players who hold AKs or AK will rise and hunt for A or K in particular.
AQs, AQ, AJs, KQs, KJs, JTs - These hands are pretty powerful. Even if someone raises before, you'll be more likely to win. On some occasion tight players will raise with AA or KK, so be careful then. You wouldn't act with AQ against one of those hands. There is a thing you should keep in mind: having a good preflop hand doesn't mean that it's going to be a winning hand. But if you get something considerable, it will be strong.
AJ, KQ, KJ, KTs, QTs, J9s, TT, 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22. These hands are considered to be the middle hands. If you have a small pair, you'll try to catch it on the flop. However, having worse odds of catching than 1/20 means you should give up. Usually when players have a hand like AJ, KQ they will try to catch one of those cards for their hands to be the highest on the board. QTs, J9s and KTs hands guarantee a variety of hands such as two pair, flushes, staights, etc.
Some extra information that may be interesting for a poker player is placed below.
10 top starting hands, considered to be the worse
1. 2-7
2. 2-8
3. Tie: 3-8 & 3-7
4. 2-6
5. Tie: 2-9, 3-9, & 4-9
6. 2-10
7. 5-9
8. Tie: 4-7, 4-8, 5-8, 3-6...
9. Face card + low card, unsuited
10. Ace + low card, unsuited
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Texas Holdem
