Starting Texas Hold'em Poker Hands by CasinoPokerPlace.com

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Best And Worst Starting Hands For Texas Hold'em
One of the keys to being a strong Texas Hold'em Poker player is to know which hands are playable and which are not. This list of the top 10 best starting hands for Texas Hold'em is a good place to start learning. Note that there is some disagreement over which hands are the best, and it depends on part on your skill level and style of play. And a great starting hand can turn bad quickly with the wrong community cards. This list reflects a consensus of the resources I trust the most.

Here are the top ten best starting hands for Texas Hold'em:

1) Ace-Ace
Also known as "pocket rockets" (and sometimes "American Airlines" or "bullets") is the best starting hand.

2) King-King
Second on the list is a pair of kings, also known as "cowboys" or "King Kong."

3) Queen-Queen
A pair of queens, also known as "ladies," rounds out the top three best starting hands for Texas Hold'em Poker.

4) Ace-King (Suited)
(This is a hand where people start to disagree.) A suited ace-king, also known as "big slick," is my pick.

5) Ace-Queen (suited)
The suited "big chick," or "little slick," the nicknames given to a pocket ace-queen, is next in line.

6) Jack-Jack
A pair of jacks -- also known as "hooks" or "fishhooks" -- checks in at number six on my list.

7) King-Queen (suited)
A suited royal couple, king-queen, is next in the list of Texas Hold'em Poker's most powerful starting hands.

8) Ace-Jack
Nicknamed "blackjack" for obvious reasons, and sometimes called "ajax," the ace-jack combo rates eighth.

9) Ace-King (off suit)
Only one offsuit non-pair makes it into the list of the top 10 best starting hands for Texas Hold'em Poker -- the "big slick," an ace-king.

10) Ten-Ten
This is the only starting hand in the top 10 without a face card: a pair of tens (aka "dimes").

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If you're playing Texas Hold'em Poker and you get dealt one of these hands, there are extremely few circumstances in which you should play them. (For example, if you're the big blind and no one has raised the pot pre-flop.) Otherwise, generally, if you see these cards in your hand you should run away as fast as you can.

Here are the top five worst starting hands for Texas Hold'em:

A) 2-7 (offsuit)
This is the worst hand to start with in Texas Hold'em Poker because there are so few good options: you have no straight draw, no flush draw, and even if you wind up with a pair of 7s or a pair of 2s, you're very unlikely to have the best hand. Of course, you'll see some crazy flops every now and then. But just because you might see a rare 7-7-2 flop once in a blue moon doesn't make this a good hand to play.

B) 2-8 (offsuit)
See above. This is only slightly better than a 2-7 offsuit because the 8 is better than the 7.

C) 3-8 (offsuit)
Another horrible starting hand for Texas Hold'em Poker.

D) 2-9 (offsuit)
This one is only ever so slightly better than the ones listed above.

E) 2-6 (offsuit)
Of the 169 possible starting hands in Texas Hold'em Poker, this one ranks 165th. Not something to be proud of.