Why Starting Hands are so Important.

Have you ever heard anyone say "Any 2 cards can win, it doesn't matter what you play"?

Essentially, my advice should help you see that any 2 cards can win, but at the same time preach that THE BETTER STARTING HANDS WIN ON THE FLOP MUCH MORE OFTEN. Which leads to them winning you chips more often!
Even when low cards hit, even hit big, they can be easily beaten / outdrawn. Like last night for example, I was on the big blind in a $5 sit n go with 6 3 off-suit and i hit 2 pair on the flop 6-Q-3. so I threw a bet in about 300 into a 400 pot. One fella in late position pushed all in 800 so I called for another 500 into the already 1500 pot. We flipped the cards and my opponent was playing Qs6s. It just shows you that with low cards even after hitting big on the flop you may still be losing.

Right on to a few decent starting hands and their stats of "making" or
hitting the flop.

Any pocket pair hitting the flop:

4 Of a Kind 0.25%
Full House 1%
3 of a Kind 10.8%
2 Pair 16.2%



Suited Connectors Aks

Straight Flush 0.005%
4 of a Kind 0.01%
Full House 0.9%
Flush 0.84%
Straight 0.3
3 of a kind 1.6%
2 Pair 4.05%
1 Pair 40.4%

There are 2 types of the most common starting hands that I would advise you to play. I will show you all of my advised starting hands later.

You see that flopping a pair is the most common outcome. Over 40%. This also means that 40% of players on the table will flop a pair, thus, having the best pair and don't forget, the best kicker is very important. What would you prefer hitting a pair of 5's or holding AQs and one of them hitting?

The table below shows how often each poker hand wins statistically


Poker Hand (worst to best) Occurs:

High Card 17.4%
Pair 44%
2 Pair 23.5%
3 of a Kind 4.4%
Straight 4.6%
Flush 3%
Full House 2.6%
Quads 0.2%

So, a high card will take the pot once every 6 hands.

As you can see the probability 1 Pair and 2 Pair combined makes up over 66% of all winning poker hands, proving that if you play better starting hands, the better your pairs and 2 pairs will be and therefore you will win the hand more often and lose less.

About Once every 20 hands, Trips will be the winning hand

12% of the time, one of trips, straights and flushes will win. Not much really.

Poker is classified under gaming law in the U.K, this basically tells us that at the point when we sit down at the poker table we have the same chance as everyone else of winning. The odds are not in favour of the house. We can only increase our chances of winning by our own skill (reading, timing, manipulation) and by using the statistics / odds / maths of poker to our advantage.

You will not remember all of this information straight away but use it as a reference regularly and it will become second nature.

Next topic How and when to use starting hands.


Great post Tony, better than the usual dross that is posted on some of the forums. Lets try to have more of these peeps.

Mike

If you know your opponents cards, your cards don't matter as much, play 74s and crack those aces.

Education of the masses has never been in your ethos has it philylad. You should share your wisdom more.

My basic Poker philosophy (if you can call it that), is to play hands that will win a big pot or lose a small pot (AK, AA - 22, 34S-78S), these are the hands you should be calling raises with, not hands that will win you a small pot and lose you a big pot (A10 - A2, KJ, K10, Q10).

Example: the villain has QQ, you have 78s, flop J78, even 68J (with 2 of your suit makes u favourite).

But calling a raise with KJ:
Example: the villain has QQ, you have KJ, flop J78.

With 78s and a flop of 3,7, J, u won't be going broke, with KJ you will.

Hopefully most guys will understand where I coming from.

Philylad13.

P.S. The real nickname for KJ, is not Kojak, but, 'the hand of the retard'.

Good Article Brat, interesting stuff.