What Are The Best Hands In Texas Holdem?

In the game of Texas Hold'em, the quality of your starting hands is one of the most important factors in determining the success of your play. Every player who has a basic understanding of the game knows that

has the strongest starting value of any possible two-card combination and should be played accordingly. Yet, as any player who has taken a bad beat understands, your two-card holding is an incomplete representation of the actual strength of your hand.

More specifically, it is vital to remember that the community cards will contain 5 out of the 7 possible cards that will determine the final strength of your hand. Because of this, the best starting hands are those that work well with the community cards to beat hands that your opponents play. These hands can therefore be grouped into 3 different categories:

1. Hands with Built-In Showdown Value

This category includes hands that may win at showdown without improving, such as

or

.

Since many opponents are willing to go to showdown with weaker one-pair holdings, these starting hands contain a lot of value because they are the strongest one-pair hands. In addition, since these hands are concealed, they are deceptive enough that your opponent may have a difficult time estimating your hand strength. Subsequently, your opponent may overvalue and overplay his hand, which allows you to extract more value.

Sometimes, even ace high is enough to win at showdown, so this category also includes strong, unpaired hands that contain high cards.

Example Hands: Pairs - especially higher ones such as:

,

,

,

and some of the higher two-card combinations:

or

 

2. Dominating Hands

This category includes hands that dominate other hands. For one hand to dominate another, it means that both hands share a card but one hand has a higher secondary card (or "kicker"). For example:

dominates

;

both share the

,

but one hand contains the stronger

as opposed to the weaker

.

A higher pair can also be said to dominate a lower pair. It should be noted that dominating hands depend directly on the strength of your opponents cards.

These hands have a lot of value because they excel in hands where there is a lot of confrontation. That is, due to the shared card, these dominating hands will often confront and win against other similar, but weaker hands.

For example, both

and

will be interested and invested in a hand where the board is

,

but

will be a large favorite (over 86%) to win.

Example Hands:

higher pairs.

3. Drawing/Deceptive Hands

The third and final category of the best starting hands includes hands that often work very well with coordinated community cards. These cards are most commonly used to make straights and flushes, but can also make two-pair or higher hands.

The value of these hands is derived from their ability to draw to strong hands as well as their deceptive qualities. By depending on and utilizing the community board, these hands make the most out of the inherent and combined strength of the available cards. Furthermore, if your opponents do not expect you to play this type of hand, they will have a difficult time reading and playing against you.

Warning: These hands can often be the most difficult to play well.

Example Hands: Suited Cards (preferably containing an

), connecting or one-off cards, such as

or

,

and suited connectors

suited,

suited or

suited).

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