Poker starting hands chart

the chart

Which hands are worth playing at all.

A low stakes cash game, a late seat, 100 big blinds. Orange hands are strong enough to raise with. Green hands are worth seeing a flop with when the price is right and you have position, but not worth raising yourself. The grey block is the answer to most hands you will ever be dealt.

Late position, low stakes, 100 big blinds

Raise the orange hands. Play the green ones cheaply and in position. Fold the rest.

Late position, low stakes, 100 big blinds. Raise the orange hands. Play the green ones cheaply and in position. Fold the rest. Suited hands sit above the diagonal, pairs on it, offsuit hands below it. R is raise, C is call, F is fold.
Higher card	A	K	Q	J	T	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2
A	AA R	AKs R	AQs R	AJs R	ATs R	A9s C	A8s C	A7s C	A6s C	A5s C	A4s C	A3s C	A2s C
K	AKo R	KK R	KQs R	KJs R	KTs C	K9s C	K8s F	K7s F	K6s F	K5s F	K4s F	K3s F	K2s F
Q	AQo R	KQo R	QQ R	QJs R	QTs C	Q9s F	Q8s F	Q7s F	Q6s F	Q5s F	Q4s F	Q3s F	Q2s F
J	AJo R	KJo C	QJo C	JJ R	JTs R	J9s F	J8s F	J7s F	J6s F	J5s F	J4s F	J3s F	J2s F
T	ATo C	KTo F	QTo F	JTo F	TT R	T9s C	T8s F	T7s F	T6s F	T5s F	T4s F	T3s F	T2s F
9	A9o F	K9o F	Q9o F	J9o F	T9o F	99 R	98s C	97s F	96s F	95s F	94s F	93s F	92s F
8	A8o F	K8o F	Q8o F	J8o F	T8o F	98o F	88 R	87s F	86s F	85s F	84s F	83s F	82s F
7	A7o F	K7o F	Q7o F	J7o F	T7o F	97o F	87o F	77 R	76s F	75s F	74s F	73s F	72s F
6	A6o F	K6o F	Q6o F	J6o F	T6o F	96o F	86o F	76o F	66 C	65s F	64s F	63s F	62s F
5	A5o F	K5o F	Q5o F	J5o F	T5o F	95o F	85o F	75o F	65o F	55 C	54s F	53s F	52s F
4	A4o F	K4o F	Q4o F	J4o F	T4o F	94o F	84o F	74o F	64o F	54o F	44 C	43s F	42s F
3	A3o F	K3o F	Q3o F	J3o F	T3o F	93o F	83o F	73o F	63o F	53o F	43o F	33 C	32s F
2	A2o F	K2o F	Q2o F	J2o F	T2o F	92o F	82o F	72o F	62o F	52o F	42o F	32o F	22 C

R Raise
C Play it cheap
F Fold

Counted out of the deck rather than out of the grid: the orange block is 9.7% of all combinations and the green block 8.9%, so 81.4% of the hands you are dealt are folds. Sitting there folding is not a failure of nerve. It is the chart working.

The diagonal is the spine of the grid: is AA in the top left corner, and every pair runs down from there to 22. Above the diagonal both cards share a suit, so is AKs. Below it they do not, so is AKo. Every chart you will ever see is drawn this way, which is why learning the shape once pays off on all of them.

how often each hand arrives

This part is arithmetic, not opinion. A pair can be dealt in six ways, a suited hand in four, an offsuit hand in twelve. Add all 169 up and you get 1,326, which is every two card deal there is.

Hand type	Combinations	Share of the deck	Arrives once every
A specific pair, for example QQ	6	0.5%	221 hands
A specific suited hand, for example AKs	4	0.3%	332 hands
A specific offsuit hand, for example AKo	12	0.9%	111 hands

Two consequences worth carrying around. Any pair at all is 78 combinations, or 5.9% of hands, so you are dealt one about once every 17 hands. And an offsuit hand arrives three times as often as the suited version of the same two ranks, which is why the bottom left of the chart being mostly grey costs you far less than it looks like it should.

the top ten

The strongest hands in the conventional ordering. The first five are settled everywhere. Below that, sources swap TT, AQs and AKo around depending on the table size and the stack depth, so read the bottom half of this list as a neighbourhood rather than a ranking.

Rank	Hand	Combinations	Arrives once every
01	AA Pocket aces	6	221 hands
02	KK Pocket kings	6	221 hands
03	QQ Pocket queens	6	221 hands
04	JJ Pocket jacks	6	221 hands
05	AKs Ace king suited	4	332 hands
06	TT Pocket tens	6	221 hands
07	AQs Ace queen suited	4	332 hands
08	AKo Ace king offsuit	12	111 hands
09	99 Pocket nines	6	221 hands
10	AJs Ace jack suited	4	332 hands

where these ranges come from

Two kinds of number, kept apart.

The counting on this page is exact. Six combinations per pair, four per suited hand, twelve per offsuit hand, 1,326 in total, and every percentage derived from the chart beside it. Those numbers cannot be wrong, only misread.

The colouring is a rule of thumb. It follows conventional starting hand advice, the sort that has been in poker books and public charts for years, rounded to whole hands so a grid stays legible. It is not solver output and it is not presented as such. Where a cell is genuinely borderline, the small pairs and the weakest suited aces above all, a reasonable source would put it on the other side and neither of you would be making a mistake.

One number that gets quoted loosely everywhere: two suited cards complete a flush a little over six percent of the time, and only when the hand runs all the way to the river. Suited is worth something. It is worth roughly one extra row of the grid, not a promotion.

How many starting hands are there in poker?

There are 1,326 exact two card combinations in a 52 card deck, but only 169 hand types, because hands that differ only in which suits they use play identically before the flop. The 169 are 13 pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 offsuit hands, which is exactly the 13 by 13 grid on this page.

What are the best starting hands in poker?

Pocket aces, then kings, queens and jacks, then ace king suited. Below that the order stops being settled: sources move pocket tens, ace queen suited and ace king offsuit past each other depending on how many players are at the table and how deep the stacks are. The top five are not in dispute anywhere.

How often do you get pocket aces?

Six of the 1,326 combinations are aces, so once every 221 hands on average. At a typical live table that is a couple of hours. The same figure holds for every other specific pair, which is why the interesting question is usually what you do with the other 220.

Does suited really matter that much?

Less than most beginners assume and more than nothing. Two suited cards complete a flush a little over six percent of the time, and only if you stay in the hand to see all five community cards. That is worth a few percent of equity, which matters at the margin: it is what moves a hand like Q9s onto the chart while Q9o stays off it. It is not what turns a weak hand into a good one.

What is a good starting hand chart for beginners?

One that answers the question you actually face. The chart on this page names which of the 169 hands are worth playing at all, in a low stakes cash game from a late seat, and the answer is under a fifth of them. Once that is second nature, the useful next step is a chart per seat, because the position you are in changes the answer more than any other single factor.

Back to all poker charts.

Starting hands.