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Texas Holdem Tournament Strategy
In this article, we’ll examine starting hand decisions.
It may seem obvious, but deciding which starting hands to play, and which ones to skip playing, is one of the most important Texas Holdem poker decisions you'll make. Deciding which starting hands to play begins by accounting for several factors:
* Starting Hand "groups" (Sklansky made some good suggestions in his classic "Theory of Poker" book by David Sklansky)
* Your table position
* Number of players at the table
* Chip position
Sklansky originally proposed some Texas Holdem poker starting hand groups, which turned out to be very useful as general guidelines. Below you'll find a "modified" (enhanced) version of the Sklansky starting hands table. I adapted the original Sklansky tables, which were "too tight" and rigid for my liking, into a more playable approach that are used in the Poker Sidekick poker odds calculator. Here's the key to these starting hands:
Groups 1 to 8: These are essentially the same scale as Sklansky originally proposed, although some hands have been shifted around to improve playability and there is no group 9.
Group 30: These are now "questionable" hands, hands that should be played rarely, but can be reasonably played occasionally in order to mix things up and keep your opponents off balance. Loose players will play these a bit more often, tight players will rarely play them, experienced players will open with them only occasionally and randomly.
The table below is the exact set of starting hands that Poker Sidekick uses when it calculates starting poker hands. If you use Poker Sidekick, it will tell you which group each starting hand is in (if you can't remember them), along with estimating the "relative strength" of each starting hand. You can just print this article and use it as a starting hand reference.
Group 1: AA, KK, AKs
Group 2: QQ, JJ, AK, AQs, AJs, KQs
Group 3: TT, AQ, ATs, KJs, QJs, JTs
Group 4: 99, 88, AJ, AT, KQ, KTs, QTs, J9s, T9s, 98s
Group 5: 77, 66, A9s, A5s-A2s, K9s, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, Q9s, JT, QJ, T8s, 97s, 87s, 76s, 65s
Group 6: 55, 44, 33, 22, K9, J9, 86s
Group 7: T9, 98, 85s
Group 8: Q9, J8, T8, 87, 76, 65
Group 30: A9s-A6s, A8-A2, K8-K2, K8-K2s, J8s, J7s, T7, 96s, 75s, 74s, 64s, 54s, 53s, 43s, 42s, 32s, 32
All other hands not shown (virtually unplayable).
So, those are the enhanced Sklasky Texas Holdem poker starting hand tables.
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