Combos
also called combinatorics
A combo is one specific pair of hole cards, and counting combos is how a range stops being a list of hand names and becomes a number you can compare against.
The counts are fixed before any card is seen: 1,326 different starting hands, of which each specific pair such as AA is 6 combos, each suited hand is 4, and each offsuit hand is 12. That is why a hand like ace king, at 16 combos, is nearly three times as likely to be dealt as a specific pair.
Cards you can see remove combos, and that is where the counting earns its keep. Every king on the board or in your hand takes kings out of your opponent range, so the strong hands you are afraid of get rarer as you find more of their cards.
an example
your cards
board
You worry about sets. Two kings are already accounted for, so only one combo of kings is left, while sevens and deuces are 3 combos each. That is 7 set combos in total, against far more weaker kings that can pay you off.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find combos in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Range
A range is the whole set of hands a player could hold in a given situation, rather than a guess at the one hand they act ...
Blocker
A blocker is a card in your own hand that reduces the number of strong hands your opponent can hold, because you are hol ...
Pocket pair
A pocket pair is two hole cards of the same rank, which means you already hold a pair before any community card is dealt ...
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Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
Forty hands against a bot, no account, and your own hand history at the end.