Top pairs – AA and KK are the premium starting hands in Texas Hold’em.

Hands with generally strong playability include:

However, in multi-way games (vs several opponents), you need to be more selective with your starting hands, taking table position and the actions of your opponents into account. When playing heads up games (vs just one opponent), you typically need to play an extremely wide range of starting hands, especially when on the button. Particularly in multi-way pots, this may not be a strong enough holding for you to continue in later betting rounds, or to win the hand if it gets to showdown. However, if your hand doesn’t improve on the board, you will only have one pair. Pre-flop, Pocket Aces is the best starting hand. When we eliminate identical combinations, there are 169 starting hands in Texas Hold’em. However, because suits have no value in this poker variant, a lot of these combinations will have the same value before the flop. There are 1,326 possible combinations for your opening hand in Texas Hold’em poker.

Betting action proceeds clockwise around the table, starting with the player ‘under the gun’ (immediately clockwise from the big blind). Now, each player receives their two hole cards. In Pot Limit and No Limit games, the games are referred to by the size of their blinds (for example, a $1/$2 Hold’em game has a small blind of $1 and a big blind of $2).ĭepending on the exact structure of the game, each player may also be required to post an ‘ante’ (another type of forced bet, usually smaller than either blind, posted by all players at the table) into the pot.

In a $15/$30 Limit game, the small blind is $10 and the big blind is $15. For example, in a $2/$4 Limit game the small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2. In Limit games, the big blind is the same as the small bet, and the small blind is typically half the size of the big blind (but may be larger depending on the stakes). The player immediately clockwise from the small blind posts the 'big blind', which is typically twice the size of the small blind (blinds can vary depending on the stakes and betting structure being played). Before the game begins, the player immediately clockwise from the button posts the 'small blind', the first forced bet. In Hold'em, a marker called ‘the button’ or ‘the dealer button’ indicates which player is the dealer for the current game.

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