starting hands chart

Starting hands.

There are 169 hands you can be dealt in Texas Hold'em: 13 pairs, 78 suited and 78 offsuit. The chart below marks which ones are worth putting money in with, and the short version of the answer is 18.6% of them. Everything else on this page explains where that line sits and how firm it is.

the chart

Which hands are worth playing at all.

A low stakes cash game, a late seat, 100 big blinds. Orange hands are strong enough to raise with. Green hands are worth seeing a flop with when the price is right and you have position, but not worth raising yourself. The grey block is the answer to most hands you will ever be dealt.

Late position, low stakes, 100 big blinds

Raise the orange hands. Play the green ones cheaply and in position. Fold the rest.

Late position, low stakes, 100 big blinds. Raise the orange hands. Play the green ones cheaply and in position. Fold the rest. Suited hands sit above the diagonal, pairs on it, offsuit hands below it. R is raise, C is call, F is fold.
Higher card	A	K	Q	J	T	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2
A	AAR	AKsR	AQsR	AJsR	ATsR	A9sC	A8sC	A7sC	A6sC	A5sC	A4sC	A3sC	A2sC
K	AKoR	KKR	KQsR	KJsR	KTsC	K9sC	K8sF	K7sF	K6sF	K5sF	K4sF	K3sF	K2sF
Q	AQoR	KQoR	QQR	QJsR	QTsC	Q9sF	Q8sF	Q7sF	Q6sF	Q5sF	Q4sF	Q3sF	Q2sF
J	AJoR	KJoC	QJoC	JJR	JTsR	J9sF	J8sF	J7sF	J6sF	J5sF	J4sF	J3sF	J2sF
T	AToC	KToF	QToF	JToF	TTR	T9sC	T8sF	T7sF	T6sF	T5sF	T4sF	T3sF	T2sF
9	A9oF	K9oF	Q9oF	J9oF	T9oF	99R	98sC	97sF	96sF	95sF	94sF	93sF	92sF
8	A8oF	K8oF	Q8oF	J8oF	T8oF	98oF	88R	87sF	86sF	85sF	84sF	83sF	82sF
7	A7oF	K7oF	Q7oF	J7oF	T7oF	97oF	87oF	77R	76sF	75sF	74sF	73sF	72sF
6	A6oF	K6oF	Q6oF	J6oF	T6oF	96oF	86oF	76oF	66C	65sF	64sF	63sF	62sF
5	A5oF	K5oF	Q5oF	J5oF	T5oF	95oF	85oF	75oF	65oF	55C	54sF	53sF	52sF
4	A4oF	K4oF	Q4oF	J4oF	T4oF	94oF	84oF	74oF	64oF	54oF	44C	43sF	42sF
3	A3oF	K3oF	Q3oF	J3oF	T3oF	93oF	83oF	73oF	63oF	53oF	43oF	33C	32sF
2	A2oF	K2oF	Q2oF	J2oF	T2oF	92oF	82oF	72oF	62oF	52oF	42oF	32oF	22C

RRaise
CPlay it cheap
FFold

Counted out of the deck rather than out of the grid: the orange block is 9.7% of all combinations and the green block 8.9%, so 81.4% of the hands you are dealt are folds. Sitting there folding is not a failure of nerve. It is the chart working.

The diagonal is the spine of the grid: is AA in the top left corner, and every pair runs down from there to 22. Above the diagonal both cards share a suit, so is AKs. Below it they do not, so is AKo. Every chart you will ever see is drawn this way, which is why learning the shape once pays off on all of them.

how often each hand arrives

This part is arithmetic, not opinion. A pair can be dealt in six ways, a suited hand in four, an offsuit hand in twelve. Add all 169 up and you get 1,326, which is every two card deal there is.

Hand type	Combinations	Share of the deck	Arrives once every
A specific pair, for example QQ	6	0.5%	221 hands
A specific suited hand, for example AKs	4	0.3%	332 hands
A specific offsuit hand, for example AKo	12	0.9%	111 hands

Two consequences worth carrying around. Any pair at all is 78 combinations, or 5.9% of hands, so you are dealt one about once every 17 hands. And an offsuit hand arrives three times as often as the suited version of the same two ranks, which is why the bottom left of the chart being mostly grey costs you far less than it looks like it should.

the top ten

The strongest hands in the conventional ordering. The first five are settled everywhere. Below that, sources swap TT, AQs and AKo around depending on the table size and the stack depth, so read the bottom half of this list as a neighbourhood rather than a ranking.

Rank	Hand	Combinations	Arrives once every
01	AA Pocket aces	6	221 hands
02	KK Pocket kings	6	221 hands
03	QQ Pocket queens	6	221 hands
04	JJ Pocket jacks	6	221 hands
05	AKs Ace king suited	4	332 hands
06	TT Pocket tens	6	221 hands
07	AQs Ace queen suited	4	332 hands
08	AKo Ace king offsuit	12	111 hands
09	99 Pocket nines	6	221 hands
10	AJs Ace jack suited	4	332 hands

where these ranges come from

Two kinds of number, kept apart.

The counting on this page is exact. Six combinations per pair, four per suited hand, twelve per offsuit hand, 1,326 in total, and every percentage derived from the chart beside it. Those numbers cannot be wrong, only misread.

The colouring is a rule of thumb. It follows conventional starting hand advice, the sort that has been in poker books and public charts for years, rounded to whole hands so a grid stays legible. It is not solver output and it is not presented as such. Where a cell is genuinely borderline, the small pairs and the weakest suited aces above all, a reasonable source would put it on the other side and neither of you would be making a mistake.

One number that gets quoted loosely everywhere: two suited cards complete a flush a little over six percent of the time, and only when the hand runs all the way to the river. Suited is worth something. It is worth roughly one extra row of the grid, not a promotion.

Folding 81.4% of hands is easy to read and hard to do.

Find out how it feels in practice. Play a session in the browser with this chart open and count how many times you talk yourself into a hand that is grey. No account, no download, no money.

Deal a hand at the practice table

starting hand questions

How many starting hands are there in poker?

There are 1,326 exact two card combinations in a 52 card deck, but only 169 hand types, because hands that differ only in which suits they use play identically before the flop. The 169 are 13 pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 offsuit hands, which is exactly the 13 by 13 grid on this page.

What are the best starting hands in poker?

Pocket aces, then kings, queens and jacks, then ace king suited. Below that the order stops being settled: sources move pocket tens, ace queen suited and ace king offsuit past each other depending on how many players are at the table and how deep the stacks are. The top five are not in dispute anywhere.

How often do you get pocket aces?

Six of the 1,326 combinations are aces, so once every 221 hands on average. At a typical live table that is a couple of hours. The same figure holds for every other specific pair, which is why the interesting question is usually what you do with the other 220.

Does suited really matter that much?

Less than most beginners assume and more than nothing. Two suited cards complete a flush a little over six percent of the time, and only if you stay in the hand to see all five community cards. That is worth a few percent of equity, which matters at the margin: it is what moves a hand like Q9s onto the chart while Q9o stays off it. It is not what turns a weak hand into a good one.

What is a good starting hand chart for beginners?

One that answers the question you actually face. The chart on this page names which of the 169 hands are worth playing at all, in a low stakes cash game from a late seat, and the answer is under a fifth of them. Once that is second nature, the useful next step is a chart per seat, because the position you are in changes the answer more than any other single factor.

Back to all poker charts.