Which Poker Hands Should You Play? Starting Hands for Beginners

There are 169 different starting hands in poker, and by the end of this video, you'll have every one of them sorted into one simple chart with three tiers. Tier one, you always play. Tier two, you play from a good seat. And tier three is the twist because the hands that cost beginners the most chips look playable. Seven two folds itself. The trouble is king seven queen nine ace four and the classic but they're suited. And this chart is built for a home game where everybody calls, plus there's one hand almost everyone at your table plays that I'd fold every single time. It starts with your friend looking down at queen six. He shrugs, says could be anything and calls. Two hands later, it's jack four and he calls again. Most home game players play about every other hand they're dealt, and that's where most of their chips go before the flop is even out. So first, what are you actually choosing from? There are 13 pairs from aces down to twos, then 78 ways to hold two different ranks of the same suit and 78 more with different suits. That's the 169. And most of them are bad. You'll see pocket aces about once every 221 hands. You'll see any pair at all about once every 17. So on a normal night, most of what you're dealt is two unrelated cards that don't work together. That means folding isn't the boring part of poker. It's most of poker. A good beginner plays something like one hand in five and the chart is how you know which one, and folding costs you nothing. If you're not in the blinds, throwing away seven two costs zero chips every single time. The chips you lose at a home game almost never go on the hands you fold. They go on the hands you should have folded and didn't. Tier one. You look down at two kings for the first time all night and you freeze. You don't want to scare anybody off, so you just call. Then four friends call behind you and ace comes on the flop and your best hand of the night is suddenly in big trouble. Tier one is the short list. Aces, kings, queens, jacks, ace king and ace queen. Six hands and it doesn't matter if they're suited or not. These are the hands you always play from any seat and you raise with them every time. The betting video covers how much. Raising is the whole point because these hands win more often with fewer players pot. Ace king isn't even a pair yet, but when it hits, it's top pair with the best kicker. And jacks are the bottom of the tier. They're great before the flop, but when an ace or a king shows up, slow down. That's the first mini rule of the chart. A tier one hand is a great start and it still has to read the flop. Pocket kings with an ace on the board is a hand to be careful with, not a hand to fall in love with. Tier two. You play pocket fives from the very first seat. Someone raises, someone raises again, and you fold and those chips are just gone. Tier two hands are good, but they need help. Tens down to twos. Ace, jack, and king, queen. Suited aces like ace five of hearts and suited connectors, two cards in a row of the same suit like eight, seven or nine, eight. You play these from a good seat, which means the button or the seats right before it. That's covered in the beat your friends video, the button acts last. So why do small pairs and suited connectors make the chart at all? A small pair turns into three of a kind on the flop about one time in eight and a half. And when it does, it's hidden so it can win a huge pot. Suited connectors make straights and flushes the same way. So you want to see the flop cheap with a lot of friends in the pot. If somebody raises big before the flop, those hands get a lot worse and you can let them go. Tier three is the trap. You've got king, seven. The flop comes king, eight, three. Top pair. You bet and your friend calls. You bet the turn, he calls again. Then on the river, he turns over king, queen. Same pair of kings, but his other card is bigger. That other card is called your kicker and his queen beats your seven. So you lose the biggest pot of your night with a hand that looked like a winner the whole way. That's what makes tier three so expensive. When king, seven hits, the friends who keep calling usually have a king with a better kicker. King, queen, king, jack, ace, king. And the hands you're actually beating just fold. So you win small pots and lose big ones. The trap list is long. Any king with a small card, queen, nine, jack, eight, ace with a small card that isn't suited and two random cards just because they're the same suit. These are the hands your friends call with all night. They look like they could win and sometimes they do, which is exactly why they're so hard to fold. One time it works and you remember it for a month. The other nine times you quietly lose a few chips and forget all about it. Because they're suited is the most common excuse at the table. Almost a quarter of all the hands you're dealt are suited, so it isn't rare at all. And two suited cards only end up making a flush about one time in 16 by the river. Being suited makes a good hand a little better. It doesn't make a bad hand good, so 9 3 suited goes in tier three with the rest of the trash. So the one hand almost everyone at your table plays that I'd fold every single time, any ace, ace eight, ace four, ace two. It feels strong because aces are the best card in the deck, but when another ace hits the flop at a table where five friends called, somebody else usually has an ace two with a bigger kicker. And when the ace doesn't come, you've got nothing at all. So an ace with a small card that isn't suited is tier three. The suited ones get to stay in tier two because they can make the nut flush. Now the home game part. At a casino a raise gets you one caller. At your table everybody calls. So when you've got a tier one hand, raise and expect company. When three friends have already called before it's your turn, that's the best time for a small pair or a suited connector because the pot's going to be big if you hit. And from the early seats stick to tier one and the top of tier two. Tens, nines, ace, jack, king, queen. Everything else waits for a better seat. And one more thing about a table where everybody calls, your tier one hands get paid. When you raise with aces and three friends come along, you're not getting unlucky. That's the chart working because every one of them is in the pot with the worst hand. And when the table gets short, the chart opens up. With four players left at the end of the night, you get the blinds a lot more often and you can't wait around for aces. So most of tier two is playable from any seat and a hand like ace, nine or king, ten moves up a tier. With three players play even more. The chart is for a full table. As the table shrinks, the bar comes down with it. So that's the whole chart. Tier one, aces, kings, queens, jacks, ace king, ace queen. Raise them from anywhere. Tier two, every other pair, ace, jack, king, queen, suited aces and suited connectors from a good seat. Tier three, everything else, especially the pretty ones. Take a screenshot and put it on the table. The first night you use it, you'll fold a lot more and you'll notice something. The pots you do play, you win more of them. And if you want to see whether the chart is working, you need more than one good night. HG Poker keeps the results of every game you host, so over a whole season the standings show who's actually on top. And it takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. It just keeps the records. So tell me in the comments, what's the hand your table can't stop playing? And if somebody at your table is still learning the rules, watch how to play poker next.