2-8 This gives you the same problem as above, and whether you are using a seven or an eight, this is definitely still a very low high card in Texas hold'em. 3-8, 3-7 When it comes to the ten worst starting hands, these are the two that come tied for third place. In this video, I show you the worst starting hands in poker. If you are dealt these cards at the beginning of a game of No Limit Hold'Em, then your odds of w. Below we have listed the worst ten starting hands (in Texas Hold’em Poker), being listed in the worst ten starting hands doesn’t mean you can’t win with them but it is highly unlikely you will. 2-7 Off suited this is the worst of the worst, nothing cant beat it in terms of it’s low ranking status, if you are dealt it you know what to. There are a lot of really good opening hands in Texas Holdem that can win you a bunch of money. There are a lot of other hands in Texas Holdem that are you so bad, you know you should muck them and you do. Then there are a bunch of hands that are in-between. Sometimes they can be good and you win a lot of money. A pair of aces is one of the best starting hands in Texas Hold'em, but do you know what the top worst starting hands might be?If you know which hands are 'almost-always-fold 'em hands,' meaning that you're going to likely fold when you have this hand, you can better evaluate what you're holding at the start of the game.

Hopefully you’ve already absorbed a wealth of knowledge from our poker lessons. There’s still much to learn – in fact you’ll never stop learning about poker. Before moving onto the next stage of your poker development let’s review some of the typical mistakes that beginners make when playing Texas hold’em.

Although one or two of the mistakes we’re going to mention are relevant to no-limit hold’em, the majority are applicable to all forms of hold’em, in addition to other poker formats. Please use this lesson as a guide, so that you don’t fall into the same traps.

The Top 10 Typical Beginner Mistakes

In no particular order, here are our top ten typical beginner mistakes:

#1 – Playing Too Many Hands

One of the main mistakes new players make is feeling like they have to play every hand. They may become impatient, feel left out of the action or don’t want to look weak in front of their friends. It could also be that they just don’t know any better. Any Jack, Queen, King or Ace looks good if you don’t understand good starting hand selection.

The problem with playing too many hands is that you are actually only going to hit the flop a small percentage of the time and even if you do hit the flop; it’s hard to know if your hand is the best. Until you understand how to play beyond the cards, you will mostly be playing based on what you are dealt and if you are involved in too many pots, the next thing you know all of your chips will be gone.

#2 – Playing Scared

While some beginners play with reckless abandon, many play with fear. Having not played many hands, new poker players are often afraid to make a mistake or they simply are afraid to lose. Because of this they will fold until they know they have an unbeatable hand. Fear can also manifest itself into paranoia, where a player assumes that anyone betting aggressively must have a monster hand (often referred to as “monsters under the bed”) and they will fold all but the best possible hands. The only way to get over this is to log in time at the poker tables and practice trusting your instincts.

#3 – Getting Committed to a Hand

Worst Starting Hands In Texas Holdem

Because of the competitive nature of poker, beginners think that poker is like other sports where “giving up” is considered a bad thing. While you shouldn’t play passively, poker is not like other sports and it is often the correct play to fold. When you first start playing poker, it’s easy to get emotionally attached to a hand. This might be a pre-flop hand like a pocket pair or making a pair on the flop. You stay in a hand because you don’t want to get bluffed out of a pot or look weak – or because the competitor in you says there is no way to win if you fold. Unfortunately, by continuously calling bets you never really know where you stand in the hand until it’s too late.

#4 – Improper Bet Sizes

This one is primarily related to no limit and pot limit games. Understanding how to correctly size your bets in these games to manipulate the action comes with experience of playing poker. However, such common betting mistakes that beginners tend to make are easy to fix. New players often raise or bet at the extremes – meaning too little or too much. Some common examples of this are raising the minimum pre-flop in no limit games when there are several players who have already entered the pot or raising 5x-6x the size of the blinds when you are first to enter a hand.

Miss-sizing of bets also occurs after the flop. Beginners will bet the minimum with big hands (two pair or a set) when there are lots of players in the hand allowing them to draw cheaply to a better hand. Conversely, they may also over bet to “protect” their hand. In most cases, these are both incorrect. Ideally, in poker you want to bet an amount that maximizes how much you can win and minimizes how much you can lose.

#5 – Chasing

Similar to #3, a beginner will often stay in a hand hoping other cards will appear that could improve their hand. This could include straight and flush draws, but also calling bets in order to pair an Ace or a second card for two pair. Calling on a draw isn’t necessarily a wrong, but the mistake that beginners often make is chase getting improper pot odds to do so. While you might hit the card(s) you need in one particular hand, if you are chasing without the right odds you will lose money in the long run.

#6 – Overvaluing Marginal Hands

A very common mistake among beginners is playing hands that look good on the surface, but in reality hold little value or are easily dominated by other hands. In hold’em, examples include suited cards or face cards with bad kickers (K3, Q5, etc.). Additionally, this includes high hand combinations like QT, KJ or A9. While these hands are not unplayable, knowing how to play them comes with experience. The challenge with these face cards is that there aren’t many flops that you can be confident that you have the best hand. Even if you do make a pair, you can easily be out-kicked or beaten by a higher pocket pair.

#7 – Letting Emotions Affect Your Play

Whether it is from a bad day at work or a bad beat at the table, emotions can affect how you make decisions. This can result in unprofitable poker actions like chasing losses, making desperate moves or allowing your ego to take over. Beginners will often make rash, emotional decisions that can act like blinders, preventing them from taking in all the information they need to make a smart decision. Stuff happens. So if you feel like you are starting to make emotional decisions in a poker game, just take a step back and reset your mind.

#8 – Playing Out of Position

There are many other factors that weigh into a poker decision beyond just the cards. Your position in relation to the order in which the action occur is one of them. Being able to act last in a hand allows you to see how everyone else is going to act before making your decision. This is a very powerful concept. The mistake beginner poker players make is entering a pot or calling a raise out of position without a plan. They get lost in the hand because they don’t have enough information about where they stand.

#9 – Bluffing Too Much

Some players who are new to the game think poker is all about bluffing. While it is satisfying to bluff someone out of a pot, you should develop an optimal percentage of bluffing in order to not become predictable. For a bluff to work, your opponents need to think you have a real poker hand. If you are always bluffing, your bluffs will not be believable and people will start to look you up. Another component to bluffing is that your bets need to tell a believable story and you should be representing a particular hand instead of just random aggression.

#10 – Playing Above Your Bankroll

Even if you are only playing poker recreationally, it is still important to manage a poker bankroll. Most beginners do not understand the role that variance plays in poker. You can be playing great, but still go through a long losing streak. If you don’t manage your poker money properly and play within your limits, you will burn through your money. Even if you develop the skills to play at a higher level, if you don’t have the bankroll to withstand the inevitable variance that comes with poker, you will go broke.

Mistakes Are an Opportunity to Learn

Mistakes at the poker table can prove costly but as a beginner you should see them as an opportunity to learn. Don’t worry if you’re guilty of making any of the mistakes listed in this lesson. Everyone who plays poker makes mistakes all the time. Skilled poker players just make fewer mistakes. Hopefully now you know what needs improving and what parts of your game you should consider working on.

By Donovan Panone

Donovan started playing poker in 2004 and is an experienced tournament and cash game player who has a passion for teaching and helping others improve their game.

Best And Worst Starting Hands In Texas Holdem

There are a lot of really good opening hands in Texas Holdem that can win you a bunch of money. There are a lot of other hands in Texas Holdem that are you so bad, you know you should muck them and you do.

Then there are a bunch of hands that are in-between. Sometimes they can be good and you win a lot of money. Sometimes, they instill you with a false sense of confidence and whisper in your ear that it’s okay for you to push huge stacks of chips only to see those chips evaporate away…

I know statistically that 2-7 is the worse hand in Texas Holdem by percentages, but I’m going to do something today I never do: toss out the numbers. Instead, I am going to dig into my own brand of horrible baggage and bad luck. From there, I’ve identified five hands that I just knew I could do something with only watch all my chips melt away.

And that’s my definition of the worst hands: the ones I thought would let me win and instead, make me a loser. Because that’s fair, right? A hand is bad because it made me lose.

Pocket Kings

I hate pocket kings.

That may sound like a strange thing to say, but I do. Nothing else in this world has broken my heart as often and thoroughly as pocket kings.

Sure, you are probably sitting there in utter bewilderment that I am referring to this as a terrible hand, but like the title says you didn’t know it was awful. Only me and my bad luck and overinflated sense of confidence realize that pocket kings are a trap.

Why do I think pocket kings are awful? Because they seem really powerful. They’re the second highest pair in the entire game and it would seem that if you were to be dealt this hand, you are sitting pretty. Of course, I wouldn’t argue that preflop, pocket kings is a powerful start.

The problem is that if you play enough poker or watch enough of it on TV, you start to notice that if anyone was dealt an ace, they tend to keep that hand at least through the flop. That means that there’s a pretty good chance that unless the betting gets very aggressive, someone at the table has a literal ace in the hole.

Therefore, my caution with this hand is to not bet like you have the world beat. You can bet as though you have a strong hand, but do keep in mind that your opponents can knock you out at any moment.

It’s actually for this reason that I would prefer pocket queens. There’s something about queens being several cards in power away from aces that always reminds me to bet a little less seriously.

This also means that should anyone flop an ace, your pocket kings are a losing hand. Of course, you could flop a king and make a set, but if you start to bid aggressively with pocket kings, you could find yourself out to multiple other players very quickly.

You’ve been warned.

King/Queen Off-Suit

Hopefully, amongst the list of terrible poker hands that you didn’t know were awful, this hand makes more sense why it’s not great right off the bat. Just like in pocket kings, neither the king or the queen are an ace.

If we go with the theory that pretty much everyone at the table is going to keep a pocket ace, king/queen offsuit smells way worse than two kings. In fact, you can’t even hope to make a flush draw with this hand.

Ideally, you would be dealt this hand, stay in (after some light to moderate bidding) and flop the makings of a straight. Ideally, you’d flop the ace everyone else is looking for and a jack or a ten. Then you would be set up for something good.

The problem with this hand is that while setting yourself up to draw into a straight is a valid poker strategy, it’s never as foolproof as actually having the goods yourself. Also, the probabilities of you drawing a straight aren’t fantastic, so realistically you’re looking at building a pair.

The strength of that pair will be determined by what gets flopped and that’s why I don’t like this hand. I can go from feeling pretty good that I have decent cards at the start of the hand to being quickly out if an ace gets added to the board.

Even worse, as has happened to me, the dealer can deal out an ace on the last card when I have been betting aggressively throughout thinking I was sitting pretty on a pair of queens.

All I’m saying in this situation is be careful with how you bet. Pay careful attention to board state and how aggressive others are betting. It is possible that your king or queen could be paired up and you win the hand. It’s also possible those shiny face cards lull you into a false sense of security and you lose.

Worst Starting Hand Texas Holdem Poker

Jack/Ten Off-Suit

If you think king/queen off-suit is bad, imagine how much worse this texas holdem starting hand is. Still, it’s one I’ve kept and lost with enough I am liable to muck it when these cards come my way.

If you do end up keeping the cards, you actually have a better chance of drawing a straight because jack/ten can be at the beginning, ending or middle of a straight. That is one nice thing about it.

However, if you keep this hand, you are going to have to be very aware of the other cards at the table because it’s almost impossible that if you get dealt another jack you will end up with top pair. Someone else is likely to have an ace, king, or queen where you can’t see it and if any of those cards form a pair, your jack/ten is out.

When I get jack/ten off-suited, if the betting is light I’ll stay to see a flop. If there’s not a chance I can get a straight draw or if the board is suddenly lousy with face cards, I am out.

Pocket Jacks

Pocket jacks was a big trap for me when I first started playing. There is a theory that I used to subscribe to heavily that said any pocket pair was good and that I should bet accordingly. For me, this was as true of pocket jacks as it was pocket twos or pocket aces.

Recent history has taught me that this is a load of bunk and I’ve definitely been able to disabuse myself of this notion as it applies to anything less than pocket tens. However, being dealt a pair of jacks and tens piques my interest and keeps me playing in more hands than it should.

However, as I have started to learn recently, I need to be very careful to how other players are betting. It’s not bad to have a pair in the hole, but it’s easy enough for someone else to have a better hole card that ends up being a pair later.

Ace/Queen Suited

This is another hand that can cause bad luck if you’re not careful with it. Despite the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title of this article, I am not advising that you throw your cards away if you get ace/queen suited.

Worst Starting Hands In Texas Hold'em

In fact, I argue above that someone probably keeps this hand and ends up making a pair on the flop.

However, like the other hands listed above, there’s a better than average chance that someone who gets this set of cards is thinking it’s really great because:

1. There’s an ace (and those are always good)
2. There’s a queen backing up the ace
3. They’re suited, so I could make a flush
4. They’re close to each other, so I could make a straight

And all of these things are true, but keep in mind one important factor: you need more cards to make this hand worth anything. It doesn’t even have the intrinsic value of pocket jacks and will need cards to make a flush, a straight or even a pair.

Just bid carefully if you have it. Yes, you have the building blocks of a great hand here, but you don’t yet have a great hand. Make sure your betting patterns account for that.

Conclusion

Like I said, the title of this article was not meant to be taken too seriously. You can win a game of Texas Holdem with any of these hands, however, they do present challenges if you’re not careful. Like many things, these hands aren’t as good as they appear to be. They’re probably not as bad as I make them out to be, though.

Still, if you bet right, you can win with them. Just pay attention to the board and, as always, no matter how good your start, if you don’t have the goods, don’t be like me. Just fold.

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