Starting Hand Selection:Chen Formula : Sklansky Starting Hand Groups

1. Poker Hand Rankings Chart Printable
2. Rank Of Poker Hands
3. Poker Hand Rankings Chart
4. Poker Hand Rankings Chart Pics
5. Printable Poker Hands

1. Poker Starting Hands - Comprehensive guide to which poker hands you should play, including a 2020 Texas Hold'em poker starting hands chart.
2. The poker hand ranking charts are based on the probability for each distinct hand rank. More unlikely combinations are ranked higher. Those are the probabilities and odds for all 5-card poker hands: Poker Hand Odds for Texas Hold’em.
3. Here’s a ranking chart of the Poker hands. The chart lists the rankings with an example for each ranking. The examples are a good reminder of the definitions. The highest ranking of them all is the royal flush, which consists of 5 consecutive cards in one suit with the highest card being Ace.

The Sklansky & Malmuth starting hands table.

Poker Hand Rankings Ranked highest to lowest Royal Flush Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten from the same suit A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 10♥ Straight Flush. Poker hands Royal flush Straight flush Four of a kind Full house Flush Three of a kind Two pair Pair High card A royal flush is an ace high straight flush. A straight flush is a five-card straight, all in the same suit. Four of a kind, or quads, are four cards of equal value. A full house contains a set (3) of cards of one value and a pair of.

This table comes from the book Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth.

This is a strategy book for limit Hold'em, but the starting hand groups do have some practical use in no limit Hold'em.

What is the Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table?

The table is a general ranking of hands in Texas Hold'em.

The Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table groups together certain hands in Texas Hold'em based on their strength. Starting with the strongest set of hands that you can be dealt in group 1, the hands get progressively weaker working down the table until the virtually unplayable hands in group 9.

The rough idea is that a hand in one group has roughly the same value and can be played the same way preflop as any other hand in that group.

How to use the starting hands table.

Poker Hand Rankings Chart Printable

In their book, Sklansky and Malmuth provide some in-depth guidelines for starting hand strategy in limit Texas Hold'em using this table. Unfortunately, I'm not going to work out any guidelines for you for the NL Hold'em game using this table because:

1. It would be quite a tricky job.
2. It would be difficult to remember and implement.
3. Like any starting hand strategy, it would have its flaws.
4. You should avoid using strict guidelines and set rules as much as possible during play.

So really there is not a lot to take away from this table from a purely strategic perspective. Nonetheless it's interesting to see how specific starting hands compare to one another based on their preflop value.

Rank Of Poker Hands

If you're really after a starting hand strategy guideline, try the Chen Formula.

Poker Hand Rankings Chart

Sklansky and Malmuth hand rankings evaluation.

Although it's a very popular hand group rankings table, it's not going to do you too much good to learn the whole thing off by heart. In my opinion, the real value of this table is being able to see how different starting hands can be grouped together and ranked based on their value before the flop.

For other useful charts and tables, see the odds charts page from the Texas Hold'em tools section.

Poker Hand Rankings Chart Pics

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

Printable Poker Hands

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