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1. The cheat sheet includes hyperlinks for further reading on any material you may not yet know. Click here for more information on pre-flop and post-flop.We also discuss Texas Holdem bet sizing in the highlighted link. If you like the cheat sheet, you may also enjoy these these awesome starting hand charts from upswing poker.They are a more detailed version of the starting hands section in the.
2. Success in Texas Hold’em starts with good preflop hand selection. If you’re playing a winning strategy, you’ll be folding preflop more than 70 percent of the time. It’s critical to have a solid understanding of poker hand rankings, what hands are.

In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win.In low games, like razz, the lowest-ranking hands win.

If you’re a beginning poker player and want to learn not only
which hands beat which hands, but how to read the board and
possible hands while playing Texas holdem, you’ve found the best
page available to help.

While it’s important to understand how each hand ranks in
comparison to others hands it’s equally important to understand
how to read the board of community cards, how to read possible
draws, and how to read what hands your opponents may be holding.
Each of these subjects is covered below.

New players should make sure to read each section in order
below. But if you already know how to play poker and are
familiar with the rank of poker hands you can skip to the
sections following the hand rankings section. But it’s never a
bad idea to refresh your knowledge and it only takes a couple
minutes to read the extra sections.

Texas Holdem Hand Rankings

The following list is ranked from highest five card hand to
lowest five card hand. Start reading from the top down and the
first hand you find that a player holds is the winning hand. See
how to break ties below the hand rankings.

Remember that you always make your best five card hand out of
the two hole cards and five community cards. You can use both of
your hole cards and three community cards, one hole card and
four community cards, or just the five community cards, but you
always use exactly five cards to make a hand.

• Royal Flush

  A royal flush consists of an ace, king,
  queen, jack, and ten of all the same suit. In other words,
  an ace high straight that’s also a flush is a royal flush.
  An example of a royal flush is the ace of clubs, king of
  clubs, queen of clubs, jack of clubs, and ten of clubs.

• Straight Flush

  A straight flush is a straight and a
  flush that isn’t ace high. Straight flushes can be anywhere
  from king high down to five high. Two examples of straight
  flushes are king of spades, queen of spades, jack of spades,
  ten of spades, and nine of spades or the five of hearts,
  four of hearts, three of hearts, two of hearts, and ace of
  hearts. In the case of the second example, the ace is
  counted as a one, or the lowest card in the deck. So if a
  straight using an ace as a one is in a tie the ace is always
  used as a low card for tie purposes, not high.

• Four of a Kind

  A four of a kind includes all four
  cards of the same rank in the deck. The fifth card doesn’t
  matter. An example of four of a kind is eight of spades,
  eight of hearts, eight of clubs, and eight of diamonds.

• Full House

  A full house consists of three of a kind
  and two of a kind. An example of a full house is the jack of
  clubs, jack of diamonds, jack of spades, seven of hearts,
  and seven of spades.

• Flush

  A flush has all five cards the same suit. The
  rank of the cards doesn’t matter as long as all five cards
  are the same suit. Any five hearts is a flush or any five
  clubs, etc.

• Straight

  A straight has five cards in sequential
  order. The suits don’t matter in a straight.

• Three of a Kind

  Three of a kind consists of three
  cards of the same rank. Example of three of a kind hands
  include a hand with three jacks or a hand with three sevens.
  Other names for three of a kind include trips or a set. When
  the word set is used it usually means a hand with a pocket
  pair and one matching card on the board making three of a
  kind.

• Two Pair

  Two pair consists of two different pairs of
  matching ranks. Two sixes and two eights is an example of a
  two pair hand.

• One Pair

  One pair is simply two cards of the same
  rank. Two nines or two aces are examples of a pair.

• High Card

  A high card hand is one that doesn’t have
  any of the hands listed above. The highest ranked card is
  designated as the high card for the hand. If the highest
  card you have is a king you have a king high hand.

How to Break Ties

When two or more hands are tied for the highest hand one of
two things must happen. The first thing is you must decide if
one hand is actually higher than the other / s based on a few
simple rules that we cover next.

Moving from the top of the hand rankings above down, in a
Texas holdem game it’s impossible for more than one player to
have a royal flush unless the royal flush has all five cards on
the board. If all five cards on the board are used in this way
by every player remaining in the hand, all of the players tie.

It’s possible for two players to have straight flushes. In
the case of two or more straight flushes, straights, or flushes,
the player with the highest card in her straight or flush has
the highest hand. If one player has a queen high straight and
another has a nine high straight, the player with the queen high
straight wins.

In the event of two or more players holding a full house, the
player with the highest three of a kind has the better hand. If
two or more players hold two pair hands, the player with the
highest pair wins. If each player has the same high pair the
player with the highest second pair wins.

When two or more players have the same high hand of a pair,
or three of a kind, or something similar, the rest of each
player’s hand is considered.

Example

Two players each have a pair of aces for their high hand.
Player A has A A K J 5 and player B has A A J 7 4. Player A wins
the hand because her next highest card after the tied pair of
aces is a king and player B only has a jack. In the event the
third card is the same you then compare the fourth card.

If two or more hands have the exact same five card hand then
the pot is split between the winning hands. The suits all have
the same rank as far as value is concerned. Hearts is not worth
more or less than spades, etc.

How to Read the Board

When you start playing Texas holdem it’s important to learn
how to read the board not only to determine what you hold but
also what your opponent could possibly have. This is important
because you don’t want to be caught by surprise when you think
you have the best hand and commit a large amount of money to the
pot when another player actually has a better hand.

Example

You start the hand with the ace of clubs and the jack of
clubs and the flop has the queen of clubs, nine of clubs, and
ace of diamonds. This looks like a good flop for you because you
have a pair of aces and a chance to hit an ace high flush. The
turn is the two of clubs, completing the best possible flush.
The river is the queen of hearts.

While you still have the best possible flush, when the board
paired on the river it means you no longer have the best
possible hand. Whenever the board pairs it means there’s a
possibility that one of your opponents may have a full house.

In the example we just used a player starting the hand with
an ace and queen would have hit the full house on the river. The
same is true for a player starting with pocket nines.

Most of the time in Texas holdem you’ll still have the best
hand with a flush in these situations, but you always need to
know what the best possible hand is before deciding how much to
risk in the pot.

Other hands to watch out for include possible straights and
boards that have a high likelihood of having two pair.

Good starting hands often have two high cards, so any flop
that holds two or three high cards has a chance to create pairs
or straight possibilities for your opponents who hold high card
starting hands.

Even flops with middle and smaller cards may offer straight
possibilities, especially in unraised pots. In an unraised pot
the blinds get to see the flop for free or a half bet, so even
on a flop with lower cards they may have hit two pair or a
straight draw.

One of the best ways to practice reading the board is by
dealing out hands at home and figuring out every possible hand.
Then start dealing pocket cards for multiple players and play
each one independently in your mind. This way you see many
different pocket cards in combination with the board cards.

If you’re still struggling to see all of the possibilities
and hands ask a more experienced player to work with you as you
practice to point out things you may be missing.

How to Read Draws

Reading draws kind of goes hand in hand with the last section
about reading the board, but you also need to learn how to
factor in the chances of hitting your draws.

Example

If you have four cards to a straight after the turn there’s
only a few cards left in the deck that can complete your
straight. If your straight draw is open ended, meaning you can
hit a card on either end to complete it, you have eight cards
left in the deck that can help you.

A hand of seven, eight, nine, ten will complete with any six
or jack. You’ve seen your two hole cards and four board cards,
so the deck still has 46 unseen cards. Eight of these cards
complete your straight and 38 of them don’t. So the odds of you
completing your straight are 38 to 8. This reduces to 4.75 to 1.

In more simple terms this means that on average if you played
the exact same situation 46 times you’d complete your straight
eight times and miss it 38 times.

Of course the actual deck of remaining cards doesn’t have 46
cards because the other players have cards, but you haven’t seen
them so you have to include them as unseen cards in the deck for
your calculations.

You use the odds in combination with your possible draws to
determine if it’s profitable to bet, raise, check, or fold.

This can become somewhat complicated when you have multiple
ways to make a hand. Usually each possible draw has a different
chance of winning if you hit it. In the example above you stand
a good chance of winning the hand when you hit your straight,
but if you miss your straight but pair one of your cards on the
river you’ll have a pair, but the odds of it being good are
slim.

Learn how to read all of your possible draws and how to
determine the odds of each draw being successful and winning if
you hit it. This will help you win more often playing Texas
holdem.

Reading Your Opponents Possible Hands

Continuing the discussion from the last two sections, once
you learn all there is to know about your possible hands and
draws and the odds you can start using the same things to
determine what hands your opponents can possibly hold and their
chance of completing hands that may be able to beat your hand.

You’ll need to learn what hands your opponents like to play
and which ones they don’t play if you want to get the best
possible reads, but even if you don’t know anything about your
opponents you can still make educated guesses based on the
board, what you hold, and the betting action throughout the
hand.

Remember in an earlier section we mentioned that many good
starting hands have high cards. Other popular starting hands
include pocket pairs and suited hands including an ace. As the
level of competition improves the starting hand possibilities
tend to change. Staring hands with an ace and suited small card
are more likely at the lower levels than at the higher levels of
competition.

Look at the list of good starting hands included in the next
section and then compare them with the current board. Which
hands fit with the way your opponent is playing the hand? Don’t
forget that not every player will follow the guidelines listed
below.

Some players, especially at the lower levels, play any ace or
any hand with an ace and any card the same suit as the ace.

At lower levels you’ll often see hands where a player with an
ace and a small off card hit two pair and beat a hand with a
pair of aces and a large second hole card that doesn’t pair up.
This may seem like playing better starting hands doesn’t pay
off, but in the long run the player starting with ace queen is
going to win more hands than the player starting with ace three.

It’s also important to always consider the players in the
blinds. If they get in for free or half a bet they could have
any two cards. Even for a small raise many players won’t fold
anything from the blinds because they’re already invested in the
pot.

You need to consider a wide range of things when trying to
guess what your opponents hold, but with practice you can start
narrowing down their possible hands quickly. As you gain more
experience you can get to the point where you’ll often have a
good idea where your opponents stand in a hand. You’ll still be
surprised sometimes because players do all kinds of crazy things
at the holdem table, but the more you know the better you’ll be
in the long run.

Another big part of reading your opponent’s possible hands is
watching them play, even when you aren’t in the hand, and
remembering everything they do. If they have a big pocket pair
do they always raise before the flop? Do they ever bet into a
draw or do they always check and call? Thinking about these
questions and learning the answers to them and others will make
your play more profitable over time.

Best Starting Hands

Here’s a list of the best starting hands in Texas holdem. The
list is roughly listed from best to worst, but hand values
change somewhat based on the level of competition, the makeup of
the game, and your ability to play well after the flop.

Not all of these hands can be played from every position or
in every game. But if a hand isn’t listed here you should avoid
playing it in any Texas holdem game.

Texas Holdem Starting Hands Chart

Two card hands followed by a small “s” means suited. For
example, K Q s means a king and queen of the same suit.

As you become a long term profitable Texas Holdem player
you’ll find situations where you may be able to play a few hands
profitably that aren’t on the list. You may be able to play 10 9
s or 4 4 from late position profitably in a few games, but don’t
even think about trying it until you’re already a profitable
player.

On the other hand you’ll find many games where hands like K J
and below on the list can’t be played profitably. As a rule of
thumb, while you’re learning how to be a better player, it’s
always better to be tight than loose. So only play the best
hands while learning how to play.

You also need to understand how position relative to the
dealer button changes the value of starting hands and what you
can and can’t play for a profit. We have an entire page
dedicated to position so you should study it to make sure you
completely understand how to use it.

Conclusion

Even experienced Texas holdem players make mistakes when it
comes to reading the board of community cards and trying to
determine what their opponents hold. Once you learn what beats
what, you still have a great deal to learn if you want to be a
winning player.

Start by making sure you know the ranking of all of the
possible hands, and then learn how to read the board. Use your
hole cards with the board to determine not only the best hand
you can form, but also the best hand your opponents could
possibly have.

The next step is learning the odds of you hitting your hands
and using this information to determine the best way to play the
rest of the hand. Finally, you can start using all of the things
you’ve learned to start making educated guesses about what your
opponents have and are drawing to.

Winning Texas holdem players use all of these things and more
on every hand to give themselves the best chance to win. But
don’t panic if this seems like a lot to take in at once. You
don’t have to learn it all in one sitting. Bookmark or print out
this page and go over it often while you’re learning to be a
better player.

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:

• 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.

Texas Hold Em Cheat Sheet

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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