Poker Starting Hand Selection Guide

Posted: November 13, 2021

Updated: November 13, 2021

Some hands will win much more often than others
If we stick to playing good hands, we will likely see better results in the long run
Let’s take a look at poker starting hand selection!

It is very important to have good starting hand selection skills in Texas Hold'em as this will prevent you from hitting pots with bad hands that would ultimately lead you to lose money. Yes, any hand can indeed win in Texas Hold'em (or poker in general), but the fact is that some hands will win much more often than others. Thus, if we stick to playing good hands, we will likely see better results in the long run. So what shall we do? Let’s take a look at poker starting hand selection!

What's The Best Thing About Poker?

Poker is more like gambling than a real game. To some extent, this may be true. However, to understand this concept, the player must have a clear understanding of the game and all the strategies used to win the game. Thus, this training in the ranking of poker hands is considered the first step in learning poker itself. Indeed, remembering the rating helps the players during the game. This allows them to make decisions and shape their strategies accordingly. Moreover, most variants of poker use the same hand rating, including Omaha, Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud, and others. It happens because all of these games have the same roots. This way, you don't need to study these hands separately for different games. This article lists all poker hands from Royal Flush to no pair in five cards. The hand rankings show the likelihood of each of these hands. The rarest form of hand ranking is a Royal Flush because getting five consecutive A through 10. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to get a Royal Flush. However, compared to a royal flush, a straight flush is more common. When you get a four, good hands have a higher frequency, and the list goes on. If you look at the list again, you will notice that the flush has a lower rating than the full house. This is because the flush has a slightly higher frequency of occurrence than the full site. Online poker sites in the USA are the best places to practice your skills from poker starting hand selection guide. Check them out!

Poker Starting Hand Selection Guide: Tips To Win

It is always difficult for new poker players to determine the best poker hands. However, learning a poker guide can help them a lot. In Texas Hold'em, the main goal of players is to collect the top five hands at a showdown. Moreover, this rule also allows you to win by forcing your opponent to fold without showing your cards. However, in this article, we are assuming the showdown happened to find out what to beat in poker. Indeed, the weakest hand a poker player can make is the first. It is quite rare to win poker with this hand, especially when there are several players in the pot.

To win, you must have high cards in your hand. In this scenario, the player doesn't even have a pair among all five cards. Meanwhile, the second hand uses one pair. This is one of the most common hands in the Texas Hold'em game. With this hand, a player can easily win many pots. After one pair, the next highest ranking hand is two pairs. As the name suggests, the player gets two pairs in this hand. An example would be a pair of 10, a pair of ace, and another number. If you have two pairs, it is important to list the highest pair before the lowest to avoid confusion in the Intertops Poker.

The Basics Of Choosing Hands

Regardless of what previous hands you have, the odds of winning are not as great as in the top three. Once you hit a three of a kind, you are most likely to win the pot. After a player scores three points, the other player needs at least a straight to win the game. Thus, a straight must consist of five consecutive cards, one of which is of a different suit. The hand will be won by the player with the seven highest straights. The two types of the street are Broadway and Wheel. The wheel goes from A to 5 and Broadway goes from 10 to A. Besides, the flush is another important hand. A flush occurs when a player receives five cards of the same suit. It is not easy to break a flush with your hands. A full house can only surpass it. In a full house or boat, five cards include a pair and a three. In a boat, the card with the highest rank wins. All in all, the correct choice of starting hands for the game is the basis of your successful and profitable game. Also, this is where any training in poker strategy begins. Novice players, as well as those who have never thought about this issue, usually choose hands to play "at random", often focusing on such moments as a "nice-looking hand”. However, even though any hand has a winning chance, with certain poker hands you will have a much higher chance of winning, and these hands are considered to be top hands when played preflop. Learn more about How Intuition Helps in Poker from our article.

Poker Starting Hand Selection Guide: Top Combinations

Good cards in Hold'em are usually big pocket pairs and high connectors. Therefore, the top of the starting range will be:

AA;
KK;
QQ;
AKs.

This is the upper level of starting hands. Thus, if we were always dealt only these hands, we would be making a huge amount of money. If we were to throw away all hands except those premium hands, then it’s fair to assume that we would be winning money over a distance. However, this approach will only work at small stakes, where other players will most likely not notice that we are only playing premium. If we only played with this elite range, we would have to throw away a huge amount of other hands, thereby depriving ourselves of other opportunities to win money. Even though this 2% is the very cream of all starting hands, there are still many great hands that will make us a lot of money in the long run if we play them. These are hands such as:

AK;
AQs;
AJs;
KQs;
JJ;
TT.

And so we get 6 more starting hands that we can play, thus increasing the number of pots we play. These hands may not be as good as those premium hands in the first range. However, they are still great hands that should help us win money. Practice your skills in the online poker sites in the USA and win real money!

The Importance Of Choosing Starting Hands

Good starting hand selection is fundamental to poker because it helps us avoid difficult situations post-flop, which is especially important for beginners. Let's look at an example. Suppose we didn't practice very well with starting hands and decided to call a raise with K T. The flop came K82, giving the top pair, which looks like a very strong hand. Our opponent bets and we decide to call because we have the top pair after all. The turn comes 4 and the villain bets again. We still have one pair, rejoice in the strength of our hand and call. The river shows a 7, and our opponent bets on us for the last time. We call, believing that we can still be ahead. However, our opponent flips the cards and shows us KQ. This is a very common problem for beginners and can be avoided very easily if you are more selective with your starting hands. It's good to have the top pair, but often our opponent can beat us with the best kicker. This is why it is so important to have two big cards instead of one, as our kicker can play a key role in determining the winner. When you are dealt two cards in Hold'em, make sure both of them are good to enter the pot with.

An ace with a small kicker is more likely to lose more money to you than to win. Resist the temptation to call raises and float into pots with hands like A4 (trash aces) or K7, because they will cause you more problems than good. Try to have the best kicker every time, and just take money from players who enter the pots with the weakest hands.

Poker Starting Hand Selection Guide: Conclusion

Indeed, it is also quite reasonable to lower your starting hand selection requirements if you are in a good position. The position will give us an advantage over our opponents if we act last, and therefore we will not need to have a very strong hand, since we will have information about the strength of the hand of our opponents acting in front of us. Knowing the strength of our opponent's hand will compensate for the fact that our hand will be weaker than usual. However, we will still be ready to fold in position, because no one guarantees that we will win every hand now, we will just have an advantage. Thus, the advice here is to expand by experiencing your range of playable hands in position. As you play and gain experience, it's a good idea to start experimenting and expand your range (within reason). However, if you are still a beginner, I strongly recommend that you stick to playing exceptionally strong hands, which will give you the best chance of winning money at poker. If you break into sweats with bad hands, then you should expect bad results. Don't be tempted to hit a pot with a bad hand just because it looks nice or suited because more often than not, it will give you problems. Thus, play strong hands and you will have fewer opportunities to make mistakes. Practice your skills and visit the Intertops Poker. Good luck!