How Not to Suck at Poker: Play Fewer Hands

The fewer hands you play, the better you get at folding.

By: Sean Lind

It sucks to suck at things. And Texas Hold'em can be a frustrating game for beginners.

You lose to your friends in your home games. You lose the first few bucks you deposit online. Worse, you may not even understand why.

Are you just unlucky? Are you making huge mistakes? Are you missing one simple concept that could change things?

The truth: You're really not that far behind 95% of the poker players in the world. And you don't need to be the foremost expert on the game to become a winning poker player.

In fact, a relatively small amount of basic poker principles can produce massive improvements in your results almost immediately.

And the true first step to becoming a good poker player: simply figuring out how to stop sucking at it.

This is the first in a 10-part series explaining exactly how to do that on the most basic level, starting with the most important tip of all: playing fewer hands.

How Not to Suck at Poker Tip 1: Play Fewer Hands.

In Texas Hold'em, there are 169 different possible starting hands you can be dealt (this is ignoring specific suits).

Out of all these possible hands, there are only five hands that are considered "premium."

AA
KK
QQ
AK (Suited)
JJ

Regardless of your position at the table, a premium hand should always be played if there is no raise ahead of you. If there is a raise ahead of you - especially if there are callers or re-raises - sometimes it can even be a mistake to play anything below Aces or Kings.

When you think about Texas Hold'em starting hands in this light, you'll realize that you should be folding around 80% more hands than you should be playing at any given Hold'em table.

Naturally, the hands you play, and how you play them, will change depending on thousands of different variables at the table.

But at the very core of the game, there are very few hands that are considered playable.

If there has been no player to open the pot (meaning no one has raised, or even limped ahead of you) you can play almost any hand with any sort of potential value.

Once someone has raised ahead of you, your hand selection should be narrowed down to only the hands that can give you the nuts, and help keep you out of any situation which has you dominated.

For example: you should never play KQ into a raise, as AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQ all have you dominated.

Unless you have a very good reason to do so, as a beginner poker player you should stick to playing only the top 10 to 15 hands, period.

The more you play, and the better you become at the game, the more hands you can add to your playlist.

Until then, keep it simple, and always head to the flop with the best of it.

Top 15 Hold'em Starting Hands

AA
KK
QQ
AK (suited)
JJ
1010
AQ (suited)
AJ (suited)
AK (off suit)
KQ (suited)
A10 (suited)
KJ (suited)
AQ (off suit)
99
JQ (suited)

Stay tuned for the next installment: How Not to Suck at Poker: Play in Position.

More on how not to suck at poker:

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Comments

Verne
2012-02-05

This should help me in my poker game.
Arty Smokes
2011-05-30

I basically use the advice on this page and play like a rock until I get a feel for what hands my opponents are playing, but there is one thing that I keep seeing that is contradicted elsewhere in the text.
Newbies are often advised to "fold 80% of the cards you are dealt" and "Only play the top 15 starting hands". If there are 169 possible starting hands, then 15 accounts for less than 9%. (Since the list of 15 contains suited and unsuited versions of AK and AQ, there's only 13 hands mentioned). If you're only playing 9%, then you'll probably only be in the pot once every orbit of a full ring. When you consider you've got to post small and big blinds with each orbit, you can't really afford to only play 9% of the cards you are dealt unless you win decent pots when you finally get AA or KK. Many times with those monsters you'll just win back the blinds you've already paid out, unless it goes to a flop and you trap someone.
To the list of hands mentioned above, I think you have to play 66 77 and 88, especially if you have position and there wasn't a large raise. If you flop a set, these hands have much more value than KJ, AQ etc.
sara puskarits
2010-11-06

Let Jack know I am at sarapuskarits@yahoo.com thanks
sara hanson puskarits
2010-11-06

Some body please let Jack Binion know I am looking for him. I am a looong time friend of the family. He is hard to reach from New York
Kris
2010-07-29

How did you determine top hands? For example 99 is ranked higher the QJ suited... 99s generally lose at least from what I have seen to a Face-card and a kicker of the same unit. I think I would prefer QJ suited than pocket 99s.
Johnny Cashout
2010-07-21

Good advice, starting with the top premium hands is a good start for most beginning players.

--it however does begin to vary according to which tables or type of games you're playing at (cash, sngs, mtts)
A loser
2010-05-13

A year to do the day of the first comment. I rule!
Joseph
2009-06-23

This Really worked, at least for me. Thanks! before i played waay to many hands, got lucky on some, but kept losing and didnt know why, now i know...
Jacob
2009-06-23

These articles are excellent. For players like myself, who just jump into playing with friends for small stakes, these are helpful tips we tend to not take into consideration.

Keep up the good work.
Mooscows
2009-05-14

Thanks for the explanation. It is the "ignoring specific suits" phrase in the article that is a little confusing.

Good article.
Sean Lind
2009-05-13

Hey Mooscows, here's how it breaks down

There are 13 different ranks in a deck, meaning 13 different possible pocket pairs.

13 × 12 / 2 = 78 suited hands

And there has to be as many unsuited hands as suited, giving us 78 unsuited hands

13 + 78 + 78 = 169

You might be confused thinking of the total possible starting hands (specific suits)

(52 × 51)/2 = 1,326

But since AK of clubs is no different than AK of diamonds preflop, it makes no sense to count all the possible options with suits.

One thing to note about the 169 number. Not all starting hands have the same probability of being dealt. It's much harder to be dealt AK suited than AK off suit for example. In fact, you're even more likely to be dealt AA than AK suited.
Mooscows
2009-05-13

"169 different possible starting hands?" How do you figure?
DadeMurphy1
2009-05-13

Great starting point for beginners.
Grundy
2009-05-13

Completely agree.

I think players watch too much TV poker, see all this action with little to no folding and think that is how the game is played. They forget the editing takes all the hands out of context.

I'd also add that as your table becomes short-handed, the playable hands start to open up.

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