Texas hold 'em Starting Hands

There are (52 × 51) ÷ 2 = 1,326 distinct possible combinations of two hole cards from a standard 52-card deck. Because no suit is more powerful than another, many of these can be equated for the analysis of starting-hand strategy. Viewed this way there are only 169 different hole-card combinations. Thirteen of those hands would be pairs, from 2 through ace. There are 78 ways to have two cards of dissimilar rank (12 possible hands containing an ace, 11 possible hands containing a king and no ace, 10 possible hands containing a queen and no ace or king, etc.). Hole cards can both be used in a flush if they are suited, but pairs are never suited, so there would be 13 possible pairs, 78 possible suited non-pairs, and 78 possible unsuited non-pairs, for a total of 169 possible hands.

As an example, although J♥ J♣ and J♦ J♠ are distinct combinations of hole cards, they are indistinguishable as starting hands. Any starting hand comprising two jacks is called pocket jacks and is denoted JJ. Similarly, any starting hand comprising two aces is called pocket aces and is denoted AA, and any starting hand comprised of two sevens is called pocket sevens and is denoted 77. Each of these starting hands is called a pocket pair or a wired pair.

The starting hands which are not pocket pairs fall into two classes—the suited hands and the unsuited hands. An example of a suited hand is 8♠ 7♠. Any starting hand comprised of an 8 and a 7 of the same suit is called 8-7 suited and is denoted 87s, where s is an abbreviation for suited. An example of an unsuited hand is Q♣ 9♦. Any starting hand comprised of a queen and a nine of different suits is called queen-nine offsuit and is denoted Q9 (or sometimes Q9o, where o is an abbreviation for offsuit). Remember, an s always denotes a suited starting hand, while the absence of an s always denotes an offsuit starting hand.

In almost all poker writing, the rank of 10 is abbreviated with the letter T, so that all the ranks can be written with a single character, unless cards are featured pictorially when 10 is often used. Also, the letter X is often used to denote a card whose rank is irrelevant to the discussion at hand; for example, AXs would mean an ace along with another card of the same suit whose rank is unspecified.

Consecutive cards of the same suit are called suited connectors. Many starting hands have colloquial names.

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