This guide will help you determine which hands make good starting hands in Texas Hold’em. One of the most common mistakes made by beginners is that they play too many hands.

When playing Texas Hold’em you should first evaluate the strength of your hand and then weigh that up against your position to the dealer. For example if you are the first to bet, then you should play much fewer hands than if you are the last to bet. The following method is simple and shows how you can calculate the value of your hand pre-flop.

 

1. First give your cards the following points:

Ace=16

King=14

Queen=13

Jack=12

Ten=11

All other cards are assigned the face value printed on them.

2. If the cards make a pair add another 10 points

3. If the cards are in the same suit add an extra 4 points

4. If the cards are in a run e.g. 8, 9 then add another 3 points.

5. For cards separated by 1 card e.g. 9, 7 add on 2 points

6. If the cards have a gap of 2 e.g. 10, 8 add 1 point to the total

All hands that give a points total of 30 or more should be considered good hands and can be played irrespective of your position at the table. If you are in the middle position of the table then you should look to be playing hands with a value of 27 or greater and from a late position then 25 should be good enough. For all these values it is important to note that they only apply as long as someone else has NOT raised. If someone else has raised or you want to raise yourself then the points should be as follows, early position 34+, middle 31+, late 29+. On a 10 man table the first 3 positions after big blind are considered early, the next three middle and the rest are late.

If you stick to this rule and only play hands with a value of 30+ then statistically you should win 17% of hands at a 10 man table.

Obviously there are many more things to consider in Texas Hold’em but this is a very good base strategy especially for beginners.

This system was developed by Edward Hutchison., Professor at the University of Syracuse, MS, USA.