.jpg "4 Poker Hands All Beginners Should Be Playing")
This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
There are 169 different starting hands in no-limit hold’em, and knowing which hands to play in which position is a crucial aspect of the preflop poker strategy.
However, instead of thinking in terms of individual hands, it’s more useful to think in terms of different hand categories and ranges in order to figure out which hands you should (and should not) play preflop.
With that in mind, this article will show you 4 hand categories beginner players should play preflop.
Let’s get right into it.
Beginner Poker Hand Category #1: Pocket Pairs
The first hand category all beginner poker players should play preflop is pocket pairs (pocket Aces through pocket Twos).
Pocket pairs are a statistical favourite to win against unpaired hands for an obvious reason: you already have a made hand.
Unpaired hands need to improve post flop, while pocket pairs can theoretically win at showdown even without improving post flop.
Just as an example, pocket Twos are actually a slight favourite to win against Ace-King suited, the strongest drawing hand in no-limit hold’em.
Pocket Twos have 50.30% equity against Ace-King suited.
Now, this only accounts for raw hand equity, so take this with a grain of salt.
It doesn’t mean that pocket Twos are a better hand than Ace-King suited.
Hand equity doesn’t take into account the instances where you are forced to fold your hand before going to showdown, so you’re rarely able to fully realize your hand equity.
The example is just to illustrate that pocket pairs have a slight statistical edge over unpaired hands preflop.
Paired hands also have great nuts potential, with the ability to make very strong combinations post flop, like sets or full houses.
The nuts refers to the strongest possible combination on a given board.
However, not all pocket pairs are created equal.
Big pocket pairs (aka premium pocket pairs) will account for a vast majority of your winnings over your poker career.
That’s because big pocket pairs (pocket Aces through pocket Jacks) are often strong enough on their own, and don’t need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably.
Premium pocket pairs will often flop an overpair, which means you’ll often be able to get action by a number of weaker hands.
An overpair is a pocket pair that’s stronger than the strongest card on the board.
For example, on a flop like: Q♥8♠5♦
Pocket Aces and pocket Kings are an overpair.
The stronger your pocket pair, the more often it’s going to flop an overpair.
Pocket Aces will flop an overpair 100% of the time, while pocket Jacks will flop an overpair or better 47% of the time.
This makes pocket Jacks a lot trickier to play, but they should still be one of your most profitable long term winners if you play them right.
Check out my other article on how to play pocket Jacks like a pro for much more.
Small pocket pairs, on the other hand, are more speculative hands that need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably.
That’s because small pocket pairs will very rarely flop an overpair, and even if they do, you run the risk of getting outdrawn on future streets.
Let's take a hand like pocket Sixes as an example.
Pocket Sixes will flop an overpair or better only 14.5% of the time.
(“Or better” means two pair, 3 of a kind, a straight and so on.)
This means that small pocket pairs are better played as set mines.
To set mine means to call preflop with a pocket pair with the intention of hitting a set post flop and winning a huge pot.
Like gold mining, set mining can be extremely profitable, but won’t come to fruition most of the time.
When you are dealt a pocket pair, the chance of flopping a set is only 11.8%.
This means that set mining is only profitable if you are getting decent pot odds or implied odds on a call.
In other words, set mining is only profitable if the potential payout makes up for all the times you miss your set.
Check out my article on optimal set mining strategy for much more.
Between the premium pocket pairs and baby pairs, there’s the awkward middle child known as medium pocket pairs.
Medium pocket pairs (pocket Tens through pocket Sevens) can be tricky to play at times, because they won’t flop an overpair as often as premium pocket pairs, but are often too strong to be played as set mines.
So the best way to play them will depend on the situation, namely your table position, the type of opponents you’re up against, the effective stack sizes and so on.
If you’re the first player to enter the pot, you should open-raise with middle pocket pairs and get to the flop as the preflop aggressor.
If another player open-raises before you, you can flat call and try to set mine, but you can also consider throwing out a 3-bet.
A 3-bet preflop is a re-raise against another player’s open-raise.
The best way to play medium pocket pairs will also depend on your preferred poker format.
If you’re playing tournament poker, for example, medium pocket pairs are often strong enough to stack off with preflop, especially if you’re shortstacked.
As mentioned, pocket pairs are a statistical favourite to win against unpaired hands.
And since there are more combos of unpaired hands than paired hands in no-limit hold’em, you can be fairly sure that your paired hand is ahead of your opponent’s range more often than not.
If you’re playing cash games with deeper stack size, on the other hand, it’ better to play medium pocket pairs more cautiously, and use them as set mining hands or bluff catchers if you don’t hit a set post flop.
A bluff catcher is a hand that’s not strong enough to value bet, but can often win at showdown if your opponent is likely to have a lot of bluffs in their range.
Beginner Poker Example Hand #1
$1/$2 Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt T♦T♣ in the CO (cutoff). You open-raise to $6. Villain calls from the BB (big blind).
Flop: J♦6♣2♦
Pot: $13
Villain checks. You bet $7. Villain calls.
Pot: $27
Turn: 2♣
Villain checks. You check.
River: 4♥
Villain bets $10.
You : ???
You should call.
This is a good spot to bluff catch. Even though the villain will occasionally show you a Jx hand that has you beat, your hand is still ahead of a number of hands they could be bluffing with.
There are a number of missed draws on the board, including missed flush draws, as well as straight draws.
Your hand is not strong enough to value bet with, but will still be best often enough to make calling +EV.
Check out my recent video on the 7 easy ways to spot tells, for more bluff catching tips.
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Beginner Poker Hand Category #2: Broadway Hands
The second hand category all beginner poker players should play is strong broadway hands.
Broadway hands are high-ranking cards (Tens and up) that can make the strongest possible straight.
Example of broadway hands:
A♦J♦
K♣Q♥
J♣T♣
In no-limit hold’em, the most common combination you’re going to make post flop is one pair hands.
With that in mind, you want to give yourself the opportunity to make a top pair hand more often than not.
This means you’ll be able to value bet post flop more often and have the best hand at showdown more often.
To value bet means to bet when your hand is comfortably ahead of your opponent’s calling range. In other words, you expect to get called by a lot of weaker hands.
In poker, most of your winning will come from your strong value hands where your opponent has a weaker hand that’s willing to pay you off.
This will often be the case if you play strong broadways because your hand will often dominate your opponent’s hand.
A dominated hand is the one that’s unlikely to win against a stronger hand due to an inferior kicker.
A kicker is a card in your hand that doesn't help you make a certain hand combination, but can often determine the winner if both players have the same hand combination.
For example, if both players have a pair of Aces, the player with the stronger kicker wins the hand.
A lot of amateur poker players tend to play a bunch of junk hands with weak kickers, which often gets them in trouble post flop.
If you have a feeling you always end up with only the second best hand, it may be because you’re playing a lot of hands with inferior kickers.
Broadway hands have better kickers, meaning your hand will often dominate your opponents.
Broadway hands also have great nuts potential, with the ability to make the strongest possible straight.
If they are also suited, they can make strong flushes, as well.
So if you’re dealt a broadway hand, your best bet is to enter the pot with an open-raise.
The standard open-raise size is 3 big blinds, but you can increase or decrease the size depending on the circumstances.
So if you’re playing a $1/$2 cash game, for example, the standard open-raise would be $6.
By open-raising or 3-betting preflop, you’ll get to the flop as the preflop aggressor, which is statistically more profitable than being the preflop caller.
If you’re using a hand tracking software like PokerTracker 4, you can check these stats yourself.
The reason being the preflop aggressor is more profitable is because it allows you to make a continuation bet (or c-bet for short) on the flop.
If you connect with the flop, you can make a value c-bet, and get called by a number of weaker hands.
If you miss the flop, you can make a light c-bet, because your opponent is just as likely to have missed the flop as you.
And since you are the preflop aggressor, you are the one that’s perceived to have the strongest hand.
This means your opponents will often be forced to fold to your c-bet if they miss the flop (which will happen most of the time).
If you miss the flop with a broadway hand, you will always have a few outs to improve your hand on future streets.
This means you’ll either take down the pot right away on the flop, or you can potentially improve your hand on future streets to take down an even bigger pot.
I talk about this in much more detail in Modern Small Stakes.
Let’s look at an example hand to illustrate the point.
Beginner Poker Example Hand #2
$1/$2 Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt A♥K♥ UTG (under the gun). You open-raise to $6.
Villain calls from the SB (small blind).
Pot: $13
Flop: J♥5♣2♠
Villain checks.
You: ???
You should c-bet $7.
Even though you missed the flop, you should still fire a c-bet on a flop like this.
The flop texture is bone-dry, meaning it’s quite unlikely your opponent connected with it in some way.
There are no draws present on the board, and very few hands in your opponent’s range could have smashed the flop.
To smash the flop means to make a very strong combination (two pair or better).
There are virtually no two pair combinations on this board that make sense.
Unless your opponent is a huge fish, they aren’t calling with hands like J5, J2, or 52.
The only combos that could have smashed the flop are sets, but there’s very few combos of sets available (only 9 in total).
So if you fire a c-bet on this flop, you’re going to get your opponent to fold most of the time.
Even if your opponent calls you with some sort of Jx hand, some middle pocket pair like pocket Eights or pocket Sevens, you still have a lot of outs left.
Any Ace or King on the turn will give you a top pair, top kicker hand, which will likely be ahead of your opponent’s range.
You also have a backdoor straight and flush draws, which gives you a nice equity boost.
A backdoor draw means you need both turn AND river cards to complete your draw.
Check out my other article on how to play the flop for a deeper dive into my flop strategy.
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Beginner Poker Hand Category #3: Suited Aces
Suited Aces are great speculative hands that have amazing nuts potential.
As mentioned, most of the money you’ll win in poker will come from your strong value hands. So if you’re playing drawing hands, you want to be drawing to the nuts as often as possible.
Suited Aces are always drawing to the strongest possible flush. This means you don’t have to worry about the reverse implied odds when playing suited Aces.
Implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially earn on future streets if your draw completes.
Reverse implied odds refer to the amount of money you can potentially lose if your draw completes, but your opponent ends up with an even stronger hand.
The only time you have to worry about reverse implied odds with suited Aces is if the board happens to be paired, meaning your opponent can theoretically have a full house (or quads, for that matter).
But this happens extremely rarely, so it’s not really worth fretting about.
It’s very rare for one player to have a monster hand in no-limit hold’em, let alone two.
So if you do flop a flush draw, for example, you can be quite confident you’re drawing to the absolute nuts.
This makes suited Aces far superior to other suited hands.
A lot of amateur poker players will make the mistake of playing just about any suited hand for the prospect of catching a flush post flop.
But this is a big mistake that’s likely to cause you to lose money over the long run.
That’s because it’s very rare to make a flush in no-limit hold’em in the first place.
The chance of flopping a flush with a suited hand is only 0.8%.
You have a better chance of flopping a flush draw, but this is still far from likely.
The chance of flopping a flush draw with a suited hand is only about 11%.
But even if you flop a flush draw with some sort of suited junk hand, you’re still not guaranteed to win the pot, because your opponent can have an even stronger flush.
Suited Aces, on the other hand, don’t rely exclusively on hitting a flush post flop in order to be played profitably.
Even if you don’t flop a flush or a flush draw, you will often flop a top pair hand that’s capable of extracting value from your opponent.
Again, you should be careful when flopping a top pair hand with a weak kicker, because your hand may be dominated.
Let’s examine how a range of suited Aces (AKs through A2s) hits the flop.
A range of suited Aces will flop a top pair or better 24% of the time, and it will completely smash the flop (making two pair or better) 4.53% of the time.
This means that suited Aces have great post flop playability with more than one way to connect with the board.
However, it’s worth noting that they are still speculative hands, meaning they do need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably.
Suited Aces also make for great 3-bet bluffing hands preflop due to their blocker power.
A blocker is a card in your hand that reduces the number of strong combinations from your opponent’s range.
For example, if you are dealt A♥3♥, it’s less likely for your opponent to have a strong hand like pocket Aces, Ace-King, Ace-Queen and so on.
An Ace blocker in your hand reduces the number of combos of pocket Aces from 6 to only 3 combos, and a number of AK combos from 16 to 12.
This means that a blocker makes it more likely for your opponent to fold to your 3-bet bluff.
Beginner Poker Example Hand #3
$1/$2 Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt A♥3♥ in the SB (small blind). A loose and aggressive (LAG) opponent open-raises to $5 on the BU (button).
You: ???
You should 3-bet to $12.
This is a great spot to 3-bet bluff and try to take down the pot right away. Even if your bluff gets called, you still have a decent speculative hand that plays weill post flop.
In this spot, your opponent is likely blind stealing with quite a wide range.
Loose and aggressive players usually play very wide ranges from the late positions, especially on the button.
And a lot of hands in this range can’t stand the pressure of a 3-bet.
Your hand also blocks a number of strong holdings in your opponent’s range, making it even more likely for them to fold.
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Beginner Poker Hand Category #4: Suited Connectors
The last hand category all beginner poker players should play is suited connectors.
Examples of suited connectors:
J♥T♥
9♣8♣
7♦6♦
Suited connectors are great speculative hands that can connect with the flop in more than one way, so they have great playability post flop.
They also have great nuts potential, with the ability to make both straights and flushes.
However, they’re still considered speculative hands, because they need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably.
That’s why suited connectors prefer deep effective stack sizes, and the deeper, the better.
Effective stack size is the smaller stack size of the players involved in the pot.
For example, if your stack size is 100 big blinds, and your opponent’s stack size is 50 big blinds, the effective stack size is 50 big blinds.
The reason speculative hands prefer deeper stack sizes has to do with the implied odds, i.e. the amount of money you can potentially earn if you hit a strong combination post flop.
Since really strong hands like straights and flushes don’t come around often in no-limit hold’em, you want to be able to win a big pot with them once you actually get them.
For that reason, speculative hands perform better in cash games than poker tournaments, since cash games usually have deeper stack sizes than tournaments.
In cash games, you are much more likely to play deepstacked, meaning having more than 100 big blinds in your stack.
So the implied odds are one of the key pieces you need to consider when playing suited connectors.
Ideally, you want to see a cheap flop with them, so you give yourself a better risk-to-reward ratio.
Of course, not all suited connectors are created equal, and there’s a certain overlap between suited connectors and broadway hands.
For example, a hand like KQs is a broadway hand, but it’s also a suited connector.
With that in mind, some suited connectors are a lot more powerful than others.
That’s why you should be careful when playing very small suited connectors, like 32s or 43s.
While these hands may look pretty enough at a glance, they can actually get you in a lot of trouble post flop, mainly due to the reverse implied odds.
For example, if you make a flush with a hand like 32s, you run the risk of your opponent having a stronger flush than you.
And if you make a straight, you will often make the bottom end of a straight, meaning you run the risk of having only the second best hand.
Check out my other article on the 4 bad poker hands you should avoid playing for much more.
Bottom line: you should exercise more caution when playing small suited connectors, while big suited connectors should be played more aggressively, both preflop and post flop.
Let’s take a closer look at how suited connectors perform post flop.
For the purpose of this example, we’ll look at a range from JTs through 65s.
I’ve omitted weaker suited connectors (54s through 32s) and stronger suited connectors (AKs through QJs) for the reasons mentioned above.
Small suited connectors can often be more trouble than they’re worth, while strong suited connectors better fit the strong broadways category.
These middling suited connectors better describe the essence of the category, so we’ll keep them in mind when discussing suited connectors.
A range of T9s through 65s will smash the flop (two pair or better) 5.6% of the time.
Like other suited hands, it will flop a flush only 1% of the time, and it will flop a straight 2% of the time.
You can expect to flop a top pair only a modest 13.4% of the time.
As you can see, suited connectors won’t flop the world very often, and that’s why they’re considered speculative hands.
However, they will often flop some sort of a draw.
Here’s the percentage chances of flopping a draw with a range of JTs through 65s:
Chance of flopping a flush draw: 11%
Chance of flopping an open-ended straight draw: 10%
Chance of flopping a inside straight draw: 17%
Check out my recent video on how to play flush draws (the ultimate tutorial).
Poker Hands All Beginners Should Be Playing - Summary
You don’t need to learn a lot of advanced poker strategy to win consistently at poker.
All you need to do is follow the simple tight and aggressive strategy, which means being selective with the hands you choose to play preflop.
To sum up, here are 4 starting hand categories all beginner poker players should be playing.
1. Pocket pairs
Pocket pairs (AA through 22) have a slight statistical advantage over unpaired hands, and have the ability to make very strong combinations post flop, like sets and full houses.
However, not all pocket pairs are created equal. Premium pocket pairs are often strong enough in and of themselves, while medium and small pocket pairs often need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably.
2. Broadway hands
The most common hand combination you’ll make in no limit hold’em is one pair, so you want to make sure that you can flop top pair hands more often than not.
Broadway hands will flop a top pair more often than lower-ranking hands, but they can also make strong straights and flushes if they are suited.
Again, not all broadways are created equal, so make sure not to overplay weaker broadways like QTs or KJo.
3. Suited Aces
Suited Aces are great speculative hands with insane nuts potential. When drawing to a flush with a suited Aces, you’re drawing to the strongest possible flush, so you don’t have to worry about reverse implied odds.
Also, suited Aces make for great 3-bet bluffing hands due to their blocker power.
4. Suited connectors
Suited connectors have great playability post flop and can connect with a variety of different flop textures. They have great nuts potential with the ability to make both straights and flushes.
However, they do need to improve post flop in order to be played profitably, so make sure not to overcommit a huge portion of your stack before seeing the flop.
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This article was written by Fran Ferlan
Poker player, writer and coach
Specializing in live and online cash games
For coaching enquiries, contact Fran at email@franferlan.com
Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $2000+ per month in small/mid stakes games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
