Strong Poker Starting Hands
To many, heads up is the purest form of poker. Playing heads up forces players to utilize many different skills in order to be successful. Some of the many skills include the ability to read hands, bluff (in correct situations), adjust constantly to your opponents playing styles, and value bet thin.
- Strong Poker Starting Hands Games
- Strong Poker Starting Hands Against
- Strong Poker Starting Hands Meaning
- Strong Poker Starting Hands Signals
Another important skill that heads up players must develop is hand selection. When first starting out, some players will play nearly every hand (even out of position). They seem to think that they need to over compensate for heads up play. Other players will not play nearly enough hands causing them to lose money due to the blinds and/or their opponent's steals.
But just like anything else in poker (some will say life too), balance is important. In regards to heads up poker hand selection, you must find a middle ground between playing too many hands and not playing enough. And to help with that, I have created a basic starting hand guide below.
HU Poker Starting Hands - On the Button (In Position)
The button in heads up poker is no different then the button in a 6-max or full ring game - you will have position throughout the entire hand.
Because of the positional advantage, the button is where you should have the widest hand range. Many players will start by opening 100% of their hands and slowly shave their range back to adjust to how often they're being played back at by their opponent.
Queens and Jacks are great starting hands, and with either of these, you can usually be confident you have the best starting hand. Of course they are dominated by Aces and Kings, but they’re a favourite against all other starting hands.
At the bare minimum, I will open up every suited connector, 1 and 2-gapper, broadways and pairs. I will also open any ace, king and most of my queen and jack hands with a kicker of 5 and above (all queens and jacks if suited). Any suited ten-x hand is good enough for me to open as well. If you were to look at all of these hands in Poker Stove, my range would be in the neighborhood of 70% at minimum.
- Essentially, the lesson here is to hold strong starting cards and thin the field when you play a hand likely to be the favorite. You can see the extremely low average winning poker hand percentages for commonly played hands like Q-10 or J-9 so my advice would have to be to stick to the premium hands as you learn the game.
- Poker Hand Rankings - Texas Holdem Starting Hands Chart. At the bottom of this page is a comprehensive listing of Texas Hold'em starting hands based on their EV (expected value). Expected value is the average number of big blinds this hand will make or lose.
Keep in mind that your range should fluctuate somewhat depending mostly on your opponent, game flow and at times even your image. If your opponent is 3-betting you relentlessly, you should open less, folding out hands you can't defend to 3-bets with. A majority of the hands you open you should be able to defend or 4-bet. On the other hand, if your opponent folds a lot pre or plays fit or fold on the flop, you can widen your hand range, sometimes playing as much as 100% of hands dealt.
When facing a 3-bet, I will have a slightly smaller range. I will generally defend versus 3-bets with any pair, any broadway, any suited ace and about half of my suited kings and queens (like K9/Q8 suited and above). I also defend with some suited connectors and one gappers like J8s or T9s. It's really villain dependent, but this should give you an idea of where I start at least.
HU Poker Starting Hands - In the Big Blind (Out of Position)
When playing heads up poker, the player in the big blind will be the player who is out of position for the entire hand. This is a huge disadvantage and because of this, you should tighten up the range of hands that you defend with.
As a rule of thumb, I will defend any pair, any suited ace, A9 off-suit and up, almost all of my broadways and suited connectors/1-gappers like J8s and maybe T9s. Looking at Poker Stove, my hand range will be close to 35% or 40% out of position. About 10% of these hands (suited connectors, suited kings, some suited queens) I will 3-bet with preflop.
Again, it's important to realize that this is more or less a default hand range. You should be adjusting the hands you're defending with according to how tight/loose your opponent is. The tighter your opponent, the tighter the hand range you should be defending with. The looser your opponent, the wider you can defend.
HU Poker Starting Hands - Summary
It should be painfully obvious that your opening hand range in a heads up game is much wider than what it would be in a 6-max or full ring game. If your preflop hand range isn't this wide (or close), you're too tight and you should widen up as it is likely costing you money.
At the same time, I hope that you noticed that none of my preflop ranges outlined above are set in stone. Starting hand ranges in any poker game shouldn't be. You should be basing your preflop hand ranges based on your opponents, game flow and image. Your exact hand range will always be fluctuating.
So while a guide like the one I posted above will definitely help you in becoming a better heads up player, knowing how to adjust for the different in-game variables will help you in becoming not only a profitable heads up player, but a profitable poker player overall.
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Every decision you make, every pot you win and your ultimate success in poker all begin with those two little cards dealt to you at the beginning of each hand. With so much riding on your starting hands, it only makes sense that you would want to pick the ones that give you the best chance to win the pot.
In early position, you want to be extremely particular in which starting hands you play. Early position is a tough place to play from so you need stronger hands to help negate the disadvantage of your position. Only stick with the strongest hands from early position - look for big pairs like TT-AA and AK.
When you get to middle and late position, you can open up your range a little. If several people have already entered the pot, you can enter as well with a variety of hands. Besides the obvious premium hands, you can also play small pocket pairs and suited connectors with the hopes of hitting a big flop.
As a general rule of thumb, you should really only play the top 20% of your starting hands. The other 80% you should just fold. It sounds terrible having to fold 80% of the time but that's how the big winners do it. Even your favorite poker pros on TV have to fold most of the time - you just don't see it on TV.
This is usually where newer players interject with the argument that any two cards can win in holdem. Of course any two hands can win in holdem but that doesn't mean you should play every hand you're dealt! Anything can happen in the short term but we look at poker and judge success from a long term perspective.
Strong Poker Starting Hands Games
If you want to win money in the long term, you need to fold all those weak hands and stick with only the best hands. Weak hands don't win often enough to pay for all the times they don't get you anywhere. All the times you limp in with a weak hand and end up folding it add up quickly.
Strong Poker Starting Hands Against
The other problem with weak hands is how hard they are to play post flop. When you play those marginal hands, it's hard telling where you stand because your hand is so iffy. If you constantly place yourself in marginal situations, you're going to lose money. Just avoid the problem in the first place and stick with strong hands.
When you play those strong hands, play them like you mean it. Come in with a raise and get some money in the pot. Sometimes it seems pointless to raise your strong hands, especially ones like AK, when you know the whole table is just going to call your raise but trust me, there is a point to raising.
Even if there are 9 other people in the pot, you should still raise your strong hands because they have more pot equity than the weak hands your opponents play. Even a hand like AK that only hits a pair 1/3rd of the time is worth raising because you'll win more than your fair share of pots with it. Every time you get money in the pot against inferior hands, you win over the long term. Sure, you'll have all kinds of results in the short term, but the bigger pots you win with your strong hands make up for the times someone draws out on you with a trashy hand.
If you play tight before the flop and raise your strong hands aggressively, you'll already be well on your way to winning big in poker. Playing a tight but aggressive starting hand strategy is the easiest way to gain an immediate advantage over your competition. If you couple that with a solid post-flop strategy, your bankroll will grow faster than you ever thought possible.