What Are the Best Hold Em Poker Hands?

You may have heard it said that your best strategy in Texas Hold'em is only to play premium hands. What are premium hands? They are the best 10% - 20% or so of the possible hands you can get. If we consider certain hands as effectively the same, for example, Ad 8c is no different for our purposes from Ac 8d or any off suit combination of ace and eight, we get 169 distinct hands. This means you should really only ever consider playing about 20 or 30 of the possible hands you can get. If this seems to you to mean a lot of folding before the flop, you have the right idea.

David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, famed poker authors, were the first to generate comprehensive hand rankings for Texas Hold'em. They put the hands in groups from 1 to 8 according to their value. Other poker authors have put their own spin on the Sklansky Malmuth rankings, but the basic ideas remain the same.

The absolute best hands you can start with are high pocket pairs, such as JJ, QQ, KK, or AA. A K suited is also often put with this group. All except the A K suited have a good chance to win without any improvement, and the A K suited has a great chance to improve to beat almost any other hand.

The best hands after these are the middle pairs, like 88, 99, or TT, and two high cards. Any two cards in the ten through ace "zone" are often worth playing. If they are suited or connecting, all the better. Obviously the higher the two cards are, the more likely you are to want to play them. A K unsuited or A Q suited would be at the top of this spectrum, and hands like K T would be near the lower end. A hand like J T suited is preferable to K T because of its straight and flush possibilities, even though the K T contains a higher card.

Hands that are middle suited connectors, such as 8 9 suited or 7 8 suited, or even one gap hands like J 9 or T 8, also have some value. These are hands you should probably only consider playing in late position, when you have already seen if there will be any raising or if you will get to see the flop cheaply. If you miss the flop, you can get away from these hands easily, and if you hit it, other players may bet for you, not suspecting the strength of your hand.

Hands like very small pairs such as 22 or 33, or small suited connectors like 4 5 suited, should only be played in late position for a single bet. These hands don't connect with the flop often enough for it to be worthwhile to call multiple bets with these hands, especially if you are out of position and will have difficulty trapping your opponents for a lot of bets when you do hit it. Any other hands, like T 2 or 6 9 suited, should really not be played in any position for any amount of money.

While there are many aspects to successful Texas Hold'em play, starting with a premium hand is one of the most basic. Follow these above guidelines and you will find playing the flop and later streets to be much easier and more profitable.