Texas hold 'em starting hands

Texas hold 'em starting hands consists of two hole cards in the poker game of Texas hold 'em, which belong solely to the player and remain hidden from the other players. Five community cards are also dealt into play. Betting begins before any of the community cards are exposed, and continues throughout the hand. The player's "playing hand", which will be compared against that of each competing player, is the best 5-card poker hand available from his two hole cards and the five community cards. Unless otherwise specified, here the term hand applies to the player's two hole cards, or starting hand.

Essentials

There are (52 × 51)/2 = 1,326 distinct possible combinations of two hole cards from a standard 52-card deck in hold 'em, but since suits have no relative value in poker, many of these hands are identical in value before the flop. For example, and are identical, because each is a hand consisting of an ace and a jack of the same suit. There are 169 nonequivalent starting hands in hold 'em (13 pocket pairs, 13 × 12 / 2 = 78 suited hands and 78 unsuited hands; 13 + 78 + 78 = 169). These 169 hands are not equally likely (see Poker probability ). There are 25 starting hands with a probability of winning at a ten-handed table of greater than 1/7. Hold 'em hands are sometimes classified as having one of three "shapes":

• Pairs, (or "pocket pairs"), which consist......
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