What are the best starting hands in poker?
The best starting hands in poker are pocket aces, then kings, queens, jacks and tens, then ace-king. Ranked by how often each wins against the hands that call a raise:
| # | Hand | Nickname | Wins vs a calling range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A♠A♥ AA | Pocket rockets | 83% |
| 2 | K♠K♥ KK | Cowboys | 78% |
| 3 | Q♠Q♥ QQ | Ladies | 74% |
| 4 | J♠J♥ JJ | Hooks | 70% |
| 5 | 10♠10♥ TT | 67% | |
| 6 | A♠K♠ AKs | Big slick | 64% |
| 7 | 9♠9♥ 99 | 63% | |
| 8 | A♠K♥ AKo | Big slick | 62% |
| 9 | A♠Q♠ AQs | 62% | |
| 10 | A♠J♠ AJs | 60% |
Equity all in before the flop against the big blind’s defence against a cutoff raise, from the same engine as the PlusEV equity calculator. Against a random hand instead, small pairs climb; why that misleads is further down. The full top 20 is on our poker cheat sheet.
What is a starting hand?
The two cards you are dealt face down at the start of a Texas Hold’em hand, also called your hole cards. Everything you do before the flop is a decision about those two cards.
There are 169 different starting hands once you ignore which exact suits you hold: 13 pocket pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 offsuit ones. Counting every exact pair of cards, there are 1,326 ways to be dealt two cards. Hands are written by rank with a letter for suits: AKs is ace-king of the same suit, AKo is ace-king of different suits, and a pair like QQ needs no letter. Our guide to poker combos explains why that counting matters.
How often are you dealt a good hand?
| Hand | How often |
|---|---|
| Pocket aces (or any one specific pair) | 1 in 221 |
| Ace-king, suited or offsuit | 1 in 83 |
| Aces, kings, queens or ace-king | 1 in 39 |
| The ten hands above | 1 in 22 |
| Any pocket pair | 1 in 17 |
| Any suited hand | about 1 in 4 |
Rarely, which is why patience before the flop is most of the skill. At a live table dealing around 30 hands an hour, you see pocket aces roughly once every seven hours. Any plan that waits for premium hands is a plan to fold for most of the night, which is why the real question is which of the other 160-odd hands are worth playing, and from where. The odds for any hand you are dealt, from the flop to the river, are in our poker odds calculator.
What makes a starting hand strong?
Three things, in roughly this order of importance, and every good poker starting hand has at least one of them.
Pairs. A pair is already a made hand. Every pocket pair from eights up wins more often than ace-king against a random hand, because ace-king misses the flop about two times in three and a pair starts ahead of most unpaired hands.
High cards. An ace or a king makes top pair with a good kicker, and it beats the smaller versions of the same hand. That second part is called domination: ace-king against king-queen wins about 75% of the time, because the king they share cancels out and the ace plays.
Cards that work together. Suited hands make flushes and connected hands make straights. Being suited is worth about two percentage points of equity (ace-king suited 67.1% against a random hand, offsuit 65.4%), which sounds small and decides a lot of marginal choices.
How should you play the top starting hands?
Raise them, almost always, and know what each one is afraid of. The notes below hold for most cash games and are general poker strategy; the numbers are computed probabilities.
Pocket aces. Raise, and re-raise when someone else raised first. Slow-playing aces to trap is tempting and usually wrong, because every extra player who sees a cheap flop cuts your chance of winning. Aces are a big favourite, not a lock: one pair still loses to two pair or better when the pot gets big after the flop.
Pocket kings. Play them like aces. Only one starting hand beats them, and at a six-player table the chance that someone holds it is about 2.4%; at nine players, about 3.9%. Folding kings before the flop because you fear aces is almost always a mistake.
Pocket queens. Still a premium hand, but an ace or a king lands on 41% of flops, and then queens have to slow down. Against ace-king all in before the flop they are a slight favourite, winning about 57% of the time.
Ace-king. The strongest unpaired hand, and the one players misjudge most. It makes a pair on the flop only about one time in three, so it often has to win by betting rather than by showdown. It dominates the hands that call it: ace-queen offsuit has only about 26% against it.
Pocket jacks and tens. Good hands that get awkward fast. At least one overcard comes on 57% of flops for jacks and 70% for tens, so play them for value before the flop and carefully after it. Against ace-king they are the same coin flip queens are.
Ace-queen, ace-jack suited and king-queen suited. Strong, but dominated by ace-king, which is exactly the hand that re-raises you. King-queen suited has under 30% against ace-king, so when a tight player plays back at these hands, folding is often right.
Which hands are premium, strong or speculative?
Most poker guides sort the 169 Texas Hold’em starting hands into groups rather than one list, and the groups are the part worth memorising:
| Group | Hands | How they win |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | AA, KK, QQ, AK | Raise and re-raise; happy to get all in |
| Strong | JJ, TT, AQ, AJs, KQs | Raise, but careful when someone plays back |
| Speculative | small pairs, suited connectors like 87s and 65s, suited aces | Cheap flops, big payoffs when they hit |
| Marginal | offsuit broadways like KJo and QJo, weak aces like A9o | Fine late, trouble early |
| Trash | everything unconnected, unsuited and low | Fold |
Speculative hands are the ones beginners either never play or always play, and the best players play them only in the right spots. They lose a little most of the time and win a big pot now and then, so they need cheap flops, deep stacks and position. Marginal hands are the opposite problem: they look good, flop a pair that is often dominated, and cost more money than trash does.
Why do the top-10 lists disagree?
Because they measure against different opponents. Against one random hand, pocket nines (72.1%) and even pocket eights beat ace-king suited (67.1%). Against the hands that actually call a raise, the measure on this page, ace-king suited moves ahead of nines and only ace-king offsuit stays just behind. The solver goes further still: facing a raise, it re-raises ace-king offsuit 97.6% of the time and pocket nines 48.8%, averaged across fifteen 6-max spots.
Ace-king earns that for reasons equity does not measure. It blocks the aces and kings that would punish a raise. When it hits, it makes top pair with the best kicker, so it rarely loses a big pot to a smaller version of the same hand. And head to head against the hands that call a raise, it is rarely far behind: even against pocket queens, suited ace-king wins 46% of the time. Pocket nines, by contrast, face an overcard on most flops and are often left guessing.
So read equity as one input, not the ranking. The order of a starting-hands list is really an order of how well each hand does in the pots it actually ends up in.
How does position change which hands you play?
More than any other factor. The later you act, the more hands are worth playing, because fewer players are left behind you and you act last after the flop.
In our 6-max cash ranges at 100 big blinds, under the gun opens 17.5% of hands and the button 40.5%, well over twice as many. The hands that change are exactly the marginal ones: queen-jack offsuit, ace-nine offsuit and jack-ten offsuit are folds under the gun and raises from the cutoff onward. Here is the tightest range at the table:
| AA | AKs | AQs | AJs | ATs | A9s | A8s | A7s | A6s | A5s | A4s | A3s | A2s |
| AKo | KK | KQs | KJs | KTs | K9s | K8s | K7s | K6s | K5s | K4s | K3s | K2s |
| AQo | KQo | QJs | QTs | Q9s | Q8s | Q7s | Q6s | Q5s | Q4s | Q3s | Q2s | |
| AJo | KJo | QJo | JJ | JTs | J9s | J8s | J7s | J6s | J5s | J4s | J3s | J2s |
| ATo | KTo | QTo | JTo | TT | T9s | T8s | T7s | T6s | T5s | T4s | T3s | T2s |
| A9o | K9o | Q9o | J9o | T9o | 99 | 98s | 97s | 96s | 95s | 94s | 93s | 92s |
| A8o | K8o | Q8o | J8o | T8o | 98o | 88 | 87s | 86s | 85s | 84s | 83s | 82s |
| A7o | K7o | Q7o | J7o | T7o | 97o | 87o | 77 | 76s | 75s | 74s | 73s | 72s |
| A6o | K6o | Q6o | J6o | T6o | 96o | 86o | 76o | 66 | 65s | 64s | 63s | 62s |
| A5o | K5o | Q5o | J5o | T5o | 95o | 85o | 75o | 65o | 55 | 54s | 53s | 52s |
| A4o | K4o | Q4o | J4o | T4o | 94o | 84o | 74o | 64o | 54o | 44 | 43s | 42s |
| A3o | K3o | Q3o | J3o | T3o | 93o | 83o | 73o | 63o | 53o | 43o | 33 | 32s |
| A2o | K2o | Q2o | J2o | T2o | 92o | 82o | 72o | 62o | 52o | 42o | 32o | 22 |
Every seat’s chart is in our Texas Hold’em charts guide, and poker positions explains why acting last is worth so much.
Which starting hands should a beginner play?
Fewer than you think, and the same short list from every seat until you can play well after the flop. A simple starting-hands plan for new poker players, tighter than any solver range on purpose, because it keeps you out of the spots where most beginners lose money:
- From early position: play only the premium and strong hands, AA to TT, AK, AQ, AJs and KQs. Fold everything else, including hands that look good, like KJo.
- From the cutoff and button: add the rest of the pocket pairs, suited aces, suited connectors like 98s and 76s, and offsuit broadways like KQo and QJo.
- From the blinds: play mostly the early-position list, and defend the big blind a little wider when the price is cheap.
- Raise rather than limp when you are first into the pot. The small blind is the one exception, and our limping guide explains why.
What are the most common starting hand mistakes?
Most of them come from treating a hand’s rank as its value:
- Playing too many hands. Even the button, the widest raising seat at the table, folds more than half its hands. Your VPIP is the number that shows it.
- Overvaluing weak aces. Ace-nine offsuit looks strong and makes top pair with a kicker that loses to better aces. It is a fold from early position.
- Ignoring position. The same queen-ten offsuit is a raise on the button and a fold under the gun, every time.
- Falling in love with small pairs. They flop a set about one time in eight. Without cheap flops and deep stacks, the other seven cost money. How to play pocket pairs shows when the price is right.
- Getting the almost-good hands wrong. In our worst hands analysis, ace-five suited, queen-jack offsuit and ace-jack offsuit were each misplayed more than a quarter of the time, far more often than genuinely bad hands.
That last one is the expensive one, and the one reading a list does not fix. Knowing that queen-jack offsuit folds under the gun and opens from the cutoff is easy; doing it every time, fast, is a trained skill. That is what the PlusEV preflop trainer drills.
Do the best starting hands change in live games or tournaments?
The top of the list never changes. What changes is how far down it you should go. This part is standard theory rather than our data:
- Full ring. With nine or ten players, more people are left to act behind every raise, so opening ranges are tighter than the 6-max figures above, especially early.
- Live low stakes. Games are looser and pots more often multiway. Hands that make strong draws and big hands, like suited connectors and pairs, gain value; hands that make one pair with a weak kicker lose it.
- Tournaments. As stacks shrink, speculative hands lose value because there is less money behind to win when they hit, and high cards that win at showdown gain.
- Omaha. A different game with four hole cards and a different list entirely; nothing on this page carries over.
Whatever the format, the logic is the same: pairs and high cards first, cards that work together second, and position deciding how far down the list you go.
Quick answers
What is the best starting hand in poker?
Pocket aces. Against a single random hand they win about 85% of the time, and against pocket kings, the second-best hand, about 82%.
How often do you get pocket aces?
Once every 221 hands on average. Any pocket pair comes about once every 17 hands, and ace-king, suited or not, about once every 83.
Is ace-king better than pocket queens?
Not in a straight race: pocket queens win about 57% of the time against ace-king offsuit all in before the flop. Ace-king plays better when you are raising, because it blocks aces and kings and can win without showdown.
What percentage of hands should you play?
It depends on your seat. In our 6-max cash ranges, under the gun opens 17.5% of hands and the button 40.5%. Full-ring tables play tighter, because more players are left to act behind you.
Should you always play a pocket pair?
No. Small pairs mostly win by making a set, which happens about one flop in eight, so they need cheap flops and deep stacks. From early position many of them are folds.
What hands should you go all in with preflop?
At 100 big blinds, almost only the very top. In the 6-max cash solutions PlusEV drills, facing a 4-bet, pocket kings move all in 98% of the time and pocket aces 48%, calling the rest to keep the raiser in. With a short tournament stack the all-in range widens a lot, which these cash charts do not cover.
What is the worst starting hand in poker?
Seven-two offsuit: the lowest two cards that cannot make a straight together and cannot make a flush.