In heads up poker games the rank (or strength) of starting hands change when compared to a 6 or 10 table game. This is due to the decreased likelihood that you are facing an opponent with a hand which dominates yours (is a 70% or more favorite against you). This article looks at how to calculate your odds pre-flop in heads-up poker and gives a list of the common pre-flop odds which every player should know.
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Be very careful playing this hand. The Rest of the Top 20 Hold'em Hands. The top 10 best starting hands in Hold'em are a good starting point for poker players but every potential starting hand can be ranked all the way down to the lowly 7-2 off suit, which only has a 4% chance of winning versus random cards. If you can put these into your repertoire of hands you need to fold pre-flop, you'll potentially find that your sessions are more profitable. Jack-10 (Suited or unsuited) At first glance, J-10.
Flop Betting: How the first 3 community cards have a huge effect on the ‘relative' strength of the bet pre-flop hands. Turn and River: Draws can complete, or high cards can hit as the community card board is completed. Top Hands and Position: Why being dealt a top 10 poker hand alone is not enough to win big. Preflop to finish, AK is only about a 2 to 1 favorite over 32. You can see from these examples that the advantages of suited and connected cards can contribute significantly to preflop hand selection. Dominating Poker Hands. A texas hold'em hand is dominated if it has 3 or fewer outs against a hand it faces, like AQ against AK.
There are a total of 1326 starting hands in Texas Holdem poker, this is calculated by taking 1 of the original 52 card deck and then one of the remaining 51 cards:
(1/52)*(1/51) = 1326 combinations.
If we leave aside the different combinations of suits then these can be reduced to 169 distinct starting hands. 13 of these are pairs, 78 are suited unpaired cards and the remaining 78 are unsuited unpaired cards.
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The cards that you are dealt affect the probability of your opponent having the same holding. For example if you are dealt an Ace before the flop there are only 3 remaining aces in the deck – the chances of an opponent holding an ace has been reduced by 25%.
The table below shows the odds of being dealt specific strength holdings before the flop.
A-A (220/1 or 0.45%)
A-K (81.9/1 or 1.1%)
A-A, K-K, Q-Q or 10-10 (54.3/1 or 1.8%)
Any Pocket Pair (16:1 or 6.25%)
Any 2 Cards Jack or Higher (10.1/1 or 9.05%)
The relative strength of pre-flop hands in heads-up poker can be calculated by assuming that your opponent has a random holding. That is to say that the chances your hand will win a showdown if all the chips went in to the middle immediately can be ranked in terms of your holding compared to the whole range of your opponent's possible cards.
The table below gives the pre-flop odds of selected head-up poker hands
A-A, wins 84.93% of the time.
K-K, wins 82.12% of the time
Q-Q, wins 79.63% of the time.
J-J, wins, 77.15% of the time
A-K (suited), wins 64.47% of the time
K-Q (not suited), wins 60.43% of the time.
J-10 (suited) wins 56.15% of the time
K-4 (not suited) wins 50.23% of the time
Hands below K-4 off suit are not favorite before the flop…
the very worst hand 2-3 (not suited) wins only 29.24% of the time.
Top 20 Poker Hands Pre Floppy
Pre Flop Hand Odds
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