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Hold'em Rankings

Here we have revised the rankings for the best starting hand in limit hold'em.

Since hold'em came into existence, there have been a few changes in the hold'em. This change has helped us to make the original rankings out of date.

Two things have happened:

• The players are tougher.

• The "blinds" are bigger.

For example, the $10-$20 game which has stated in the book as having one $5 blind now has a $5 and $10 blind.

The $15-$30 and $10-$20 games have doubled their old blinds. These big blinds have implications on your correct poker strategy.

Big blinds encourage multi-way pots. This, in turn, raises the value of suited hands, especially suited connectors. You can notice this in the new rankings.

The fact that players are tougher along with the size of the pot before the flop has raised the value of medium pairs in the hole. This is because you will not automatically give up on these hands when an over card flops.

These are two relevant factors used in making up those revised rankings (though there are other things which are not mentioned).

The hand ranking has been put into the eight groups. It is very important to learn which group a hand is in than to remember the ranking.

Also remember the old rankings still work well in most smaller, weaker games.

The rankings are as follows with an "s" indicating suited and an "x" indicating a small card. Note that a 10 is represented as "T." Also if no "s" appears then the poker hand is not suited.