While it’s not always a great idea to confine yourself to a certain parameter, especially in a game like online poker when image means just as much as cards, the foundation of the game lies on knowing the most basically valued hands.

The top pairs: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10 10 and 9 9.

These are by and large considered the hands you wait for, the hands that when they are dealt to you, many players sit up and take notice. Big pairs are great particularly when used in isolation against one, maybe two other players, and you will want to narrow the field rather than allowing a lot in, because in the end, one pair (unless it develops into three of a kind or other) isn’t always going to hold up in a multiway pot.

You’ll often want to raise and re-raise with these hands, especially in tournament poker.

The biggest connectors: AK (suited), AK (offsuit), AQ (suited), AQ.

These poker hands, while not yet made, often turn into the best hand, and can be a coinflip in a race situation against other pairs. These hands have a tendency to get pushed too much when they miss, and overvalued against the bigger pairs, but playing these cards tends to be profitable if you can know to jettison them when they don’t pay out.

Obviously, suited versions of the hands are better than their unsuited brethren.

If you are looking to play solid, by the book poker, you could be worse off than to restrict yourself to play just these top ten hands while getting your head into the game and paying attention to each pot as it develops as you learn to introduce other kind of hands in the right condition.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Gambling Fortunes, Games Playing, Have Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.