The best poker hands

In Texas Hold’em players are dealt two cards each. The rest of their hand will be made up from the community cards that are dealt face up in the middle of the poker table. The order of poker hands from best to worst can be seen in our Poker Hand Rankings page; this article is about the strongest poker starting hands.

Each player can use both, one or even none of their own cards, called ‘hole‘ cards, with some of the cards in the center of the table, called ‘community‘ or ‘board‘ cards, to make up their five card poker hand.

For example, if there are two kings in the center of the poker table, face up, then every player at the table that is still in the game has a pair of kings.

The difference then is what the player has in his ‘hole’ cards.

So Texas Hold’em poker hands are going to be combination’s of two cards only, as, when you are starting the game no ‘board’ cards have been dealt yet.

So, when you understand that, you will see that there are not that many possible combination’s of starting hands possible. Further to that, having a ‘pair’ of cards, that is, two cards of the same value but different suits, can be counted as a number of poker hands, but in reality, a pair of, say, four’s, is a pair of fours, no matter if it is a four of clubs and a four of spades, or a four of diamonds with a four of hearts.

The end result is that you have a pair of fours, which is a low pair, and, incidentally, not a great starting hand when there are a lot of players.

To limit the number of starting hands even further, most random cards that do not make up a pair can all be lumped into the same classification, that is, ‘rags‘, or ‘hands that are not worth playing. I say most random cards can be classed this way, as of course some higher value cards are worth playing even though they are not ‘paired‘, such as an Ace and a King, which can be a very strong starting hand.

So, to get started, we are going to list the top ten best starting hands that a player can be dealt in a game of Texas Hold’em.

The strongest starting hand in Texas Hold’em is a pair of Aces. Two Aces, no matter what suit, is the best possible hand to begin a hand of poker with. Also referred to as ‘pocket rockets‘ or American Airlines (A A), or even Bullets, this is the hand that you want to see, will almost always want to play with, and will probably win more than any other hand.

The next strongest hands are also pairs, a pair of Kings is second strongest, with a pair of Queens being the third strongest poker hand.

The fourth best Hold’em hand is Ace King, preferably suited, that is, of the same suit, such as Hearts.

The fifth strongest hand is another pair, this time of Jacks.

The sixth to tenth strongest Texas Hold’em poker hands are Ace Queen, King Queen, Ace Jack, King Jack and Ace Ten.

Those are the top ten strongest poker hands in Texas Hold’em, and you really want to be playing those hands more than any others. Unfortunately, you are going to see a lot more of the other starting hands than you are going to see premium poker hands like those listed above.

Roughly, you will be dealt a premium hand about once in twenty deals. So if you only played those ten hands, you would be folding an awful lot of the time, and your stack would be eaten away from paying the blinds but not playing.

Also, playing such a tight range of starting hands would soon become obvious to the other players at the table. If you get a reputation for only playing premium hands then you will win less money with those cards, as other players will be more likely to fold when they see that you are playing.

Related posts:

1. Poker Hand Rankings
2. The importance of hand selection
3. Developing a playing style
4. Playing with a short stack
5. Position and what it means in poker