Starting hands for beginners
3 min read · Updated 2026-09-26
The single biggest improvement a new player can make is playing fewer hands. Good players fold most of their starting hands before the flop. When they do play, they usually raise rather than just call.
Reading hand notation
- AK means ace-king. s means suited (same suit), o means offsuit: AKs, AKo.
- T stands for ten, so KT is king-ten.
- There are 1,326 possible two-card deals, but only 169 different starting hands: 13 pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 offsuit hands.
A simple tier list
| Tier | Hands | How to play them |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Premium | AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AKo | Raise from any seat. Happy to re-raise. |
| 2 · Strong | JJ, TT, AQs, AQo, AJs, KQs | Raise from most seats. |
| 3 · Good | 99, 88, ATs, KJs, QJs, JTs, AJo, KQo | Raise from the middle seats onward. Fold to big raises from early seats. |
| 4 · Speculative | 77–22, A9s–A2s, KTs, QTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s | Play from late seats or when it’s cheap. They win big pots when they hit and are easy to fold when they miss. |
| Everything else | e.g. A8o, K9o, Q7s, J6o, 72o | Fold. These hands make second-best hands that lose chips. |
Tip — Suited is nice, not magic: Being suited adds only a few percentage points (typically 2–4) to a hand’s chances against another hand. A weak suited hand is still a weak hand.
Why your seat matters
The later you act, the more you know. On the button you act last on the flop, turn and river, so you see what everyone else does first. Play tighter in early seats and wider near the button.
| Seat | What to play |
|---|---|
| Early (first 2–3 to act) | Tiers 1–2 |
| Middle | Tiers 1–3 |
| Late (cutoff, button) | Tiers 1–4 |
| Blinds | Defend with tiers 1–3 against a raise; see a cheap flop with tier 4 |
Famous preflop matchups
Win chances if both players are all-in before the flop, with ties counted as half. Exact numbers shift by a point or so depending on suits.
| Matchup | Favourite | Chances | Nickname |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA vs KK | AA | 82% – 18% | The cooler |
| QQ vs AKo | 57% – 43% | A coin flip | |
| 22 vs AKo | 22 | 53% – 47% | Pair vs two overcards |
| AKo vs AQo | AK | 74% – 26% | Domination |
| AKo vs QJo | AK | 64% – 36% | Two higher cards |
| AKo vs JTs | AK | 59% – 41% | Big cards vs connectors |
Dominated:
A♦ Q♣Against A♠ K♥, the queen is outgunned: when an ace comes, AK usually still wins. Sharing a card with a better hand is what makes domination so costly.
How often you’re dealt…
| Hand | Chance | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Any pocket pair | 5.9% | 1 in 17 |
| Pocket aces (or any one specific pair) | 0.45% | 1 in 221 |
| Ace-king, suited or not | 1.2% | 1 in 83 |
| Two suited cards | 23.5% | 1 in 4 |
- A pocket pair flops three of a kind or better 11.8% of the time — about 1 in 8.5.
- Two unpaired cards pair at least one of them on the flop 32% of the time — about 1 in 3.
- Two suited cards end up with a flush by the river only 6.4% of the time.