Good starting hands in poker do not guarantee you will win a game, as an all-star online casino can tell you. However, they play a major role in how you start your gameplay. They are great if you employ optimal strategies, which is why they are worth having.
Today’s casino news highlights the strong starting hands in poker and gives you strategies for playing them.
Top 10 Good Starting Hands in Poker
Poker starting hands are the two cards you are dealt at the start of each game. They are also often called hole cards and are the only cards you will be given in the round. However, you have to work with these two hole cards and five dedicated community cards to create the best five hands to win the game. Remember these work for both on-site poker and online poker as well.
The better the cards in your hand, the higher your chances of winning a round. Interestingly, some cards give you a high chance of winning before the community cards are dealt. Hence, they are referred to as good starting hands.
Top Five Poker Starting Hands
The skills involved in poker raise the question: Is poker considered a sport? The answer, as of today, is still NO. But, until this stance changes, here are the strong starting hands in poker to look out for.
Pair of Aces (Pocket Aces – AA)
A pair of aces is so good to have as a starting hand that it goes by numerous nicknames, such as Bullet or American Airlines. This hand will most likely win against all others in a poker game pre-flop. The other hand would take a winning spot depending on the cards in the flop.
Pocket Kings (KK)
This is the next best hand after aces and carries as much value. The major benefit of this hand is that you have a higher chance of hitting your hand on the flop and it will dominate other hands, such as QQ, JJ, or 10,10.
Pocket Queens (QQ)
This is the third good starting hand in poker. However, this couple of queens requires cautious gameplay. It is slightly favored over the AK pair, which is an equally strong starting hand. You have a higher chance of winning a round with pocket queens than with other pocket pairs.
Ace King Suited (AK)
This is the fourth-best starting hand and a threat to good poker hands like the pocket queens. This suit offers more ways to win than the first three mentioned. Theoretically, it is the weaker hand, but mathematically, it has a slight advantage over the pocket queens. It is also a hand that can be improved post-flop.
Pocket Jacks (JJ)
Although not as valuable as others, the pocket jacks are one of the strongest starting hands in poker that you shouldn’t easily dismiss. However, recently, there has been an uproar about how there is no right way to play this hand. For pocket jacks to make this much wave, you should definitely watch out for it.
Five More Excellent Starting Hands
While the above are the top five good starting hands in poker, other hands are still worth noting. In ascending order, they are Ace-queen (AQ), pocket tens (TT), pocket nines (99), Ace-Jack (AJ), and King-Queen (KQ).
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Top Winning Strategies To Use With These Premium Hands
For Pocket Aces, your best play would be conservative. Try to keep calm and avoid giving anything away. Wait for your turn and strike with a raise, but not so much. You don’t want to make other players suspicious. Any higher raise will force other players to fold, and you would receive little rewards in the pot. However, all these must be done pre-flop.
Pocket Kings share a similar gameplay with pocket aces. You want to get as much money into the pot as possible before the flop. If you find one, your only stumbling block would be the pair of aces, so you can be a little aggressive in gameplay. However, be careful with it after the flop.
Pocket queens should often be played with raises and reraises. At the same time, you must be careful with this, especially when facing tight players who engage in 4-bet strategies.
Ace King Suited is often termed a powerhouse starting hand and is usually played aggressively in most scenarios, but you can frequently make hands like Straights and Flushes beat others of the same ranking.
You should consider playing aggressively with pocket Jacks but with as little money as possible. You can go as far as 3-betting and 4-betting with it. Anything higher should be a no.
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Zooming In
We’ve listed the strong starting hands in poker and other generally accepted top hands worldwide. However, there are many ways to play them beyond what we discussed here. Practice often to find out what works for you. Poker is a dynamic game. Some unassuming skills have won players good sums of money. Go for it!
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