In this lesson we’re going to run through a number of heads-up match-ups that will help give you an idea of where you stand in a variety of pre-flop situations when playing hold’em. Be aware that we’re only going to focus on individual hand match-ups. When playing hold’em it’s essential that you put your opponent on a range of hands, rather than specific holdings. However, knowing the odds of common pre-flop match-ups is a good starting point. Pick out and study what will help you. While it’s not essential that these statistics be committed to memory, it won’t hurt you if you do.
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- Poker Odds By Hand Pre Flop
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- Poker Hands Odds Preflop
See full list on automaticpoker.com. Poker Hand Odds Calculator Pre Flop 3. The Poker Hand Range Calculator instantly show equities, combination counts, and hand value breakdowns. Use the reset buttons to start over the calculation. First, we start with a preflop range. Get started by selecting a preflop range for the scenario you are analyzing. Looking at all these factors will give you an idea of the best hand you can play in pre-flop. In general, the best hands to play in pre-flop will be big pocket pairs (Ace-Ace being the best), big. Sep 08, 2020 Preflop Poker Odds Probability of being dealt a certain starting hand There are a total of exactly 1,326 different starting hand combinations in Texas Hold’em poker. However, many of them are practically identical, e.g. A♥K♣ is exactly the same hand as A♦K♠ before the flop. Yes, 55 is a good hand to try to get a cheap look at the flop with. The odds against you flopping a set with a hand like 55 are pretty bad; about 7.5-1 against. So looking at equity alone, a case.
Let’s start by looking at hand match-ups when holding a pair:
Pair vs. Pair
The higher pair is an 80 percent favourite. We can get very technical and highlight the fact that if the underpair didn’t have any clean suits and/or the maximum number of straight outs then the high pair’s equity would increases by one or two percent.
Pair vs. Overcards
This is the classic coin flip hand that you’ll see many times late in tournaments with one player being all-in. The term coin flip indicates an even money situation which is really a 55 to 45 percent situation, as the pair is a slight favourite.
Pair vs. Undercards
In this situation the pair is normally about a 5-to-1 favourite and can vary depending on whether the two undercards are suited and/or connectors.
Pair vs. Overcard and an undercard
The pair is about a 70 percent favourite. Another example of this holding would be J-J against A-9. The underdog non-paired hand has three outs while the favourite has redraws.
Pair vs. Overcard and one of that pair
The classic example of this situation is the confrontation between a pair of cowboys and big slick. The A-K has three outs and it becomes a 70-30 percent situation or a 2.3-to-1 dog for the cowboys. This is a far cry from the next situation where even though one of the pair is matched the other card is lower.
Pair vs. Undercard and one of that pair
The non pair has to hit its undercard twice or make a straight or flush to prevail. The pair is better than a 90 percent favourite or slightly better than 10-to-1 odds. I’ll take those odds anytime.
Pair vs. Lower suited connectors
You see this match-up late in tournaments when a player is getting desperate and pushes all-in with middle suited connectors. A hand such as Q-Q against 7-6 suited would be a prime example. The pair is a strong favourite to win.
Pair vs. Higher suited connectors
Here is the real coin flip situation. A pair of eights heads-up against a suited Q-J is a fifty-fifty proposition. The higher suited cards would have an edge against a lower pair, such as 2’s or 3’s, since the board itself can sometimes destroy little pairs.
Common Pre-Flop Match-Ups (Non Pairs)
The following heads-up confrontations contain no pairs.
Two high cards vs. Two undercards
The two higher cards are usually a 65% favourite to win, but it can vary depending on whether any of the cards are suited and/or connectors.
High card, low card vs. Two middle cards
In this match-up the high card gives it the edge. But it’s only a marginal winner, approximately 57% to the hand containing the high card.
High card, middle card vs. Second highest, low card
The edge is increased by around 5% when the low card becomes the third highest card, as shown in this example, which gives approx 62% to 38% for high card/middle card combination.
High card, same card vs. Same card, low card
In this example the A-J is in a very strong position. If we discount any flush or straight possibilities, it only leaves the player holding J-8 with three outs (the three remaining 8’s).
Same high card, high kicker vs. Same card, low kicker
The high kicker gives this hand a fairly big edge. It’s very common for A-K run into A-Q, A-J, and lower, and it’s why Ace-King is such a powerful hand, particularly at the business end of no-limit hold’em tournaments when people move all-in with any sort of Ace.
Statistical Variations
For any math maniacs reading this who do not find these odds precise enough, I acknowledge that the math is rounded and for the most part does not take into account the possibilities of ties and back door straights and flushes. What players need to be equipped with is the general statistical match-up – not the fact that in the example of a pair of eights against a suited Q-J the percents are exactly 50.61 for the eights to 48.99 for the suited connectors with the balance going to potential ties. I call that a fifty-fifty proposition.
Of greater importance than quibbling over tenths of a percent is the fact that in most heads-up confrontations you can never be a prohibitive underdog. That is one reason why poker is so challenging and fun. Of course, while true, I’m not attempting to embolden the reader to ignore the odds and become a maniac. Math is the underpinning of poker and if you regularly get your money into the middle with the worst of it you will go broke.
One statistic that hasn’t been mentioned, and it’s one that I particularly like is this – the odds of both players being dealt Aces when playing heads up (one on one) is 270,724-to-1. It’s my favourite statistic because it provides me with almost total confidence when I’m playing heads up and receive pocket Aces that I’m the boss! That confident feeling lasts right up to the river when my Aces get cracked by some rotten piece of cheese which my opponent elected to play. As mentioned already, rarely are you a prohibitive underdog – so remember that to keep those losing hands in perspective.
Related Lessons
By Tom 'TIME' Leonard
Do Poker Odds Change With More Players?Absolutely. The More Players Involved In A Pot, The Less Your Chances Of Winning It. That's Why It May Make Sense To Shove Pre-flop With Certain Ha...
Tom has been writing about poker since 1994 and has played across the USA for over 40 years, playing every game in almost every card room in Atlantic City, California and Las Vegas.
Poker Odds By Hand Pre Flop
Based on the tabulated data and chart generated, there are a few interesting observations to be made. The are listed below:
1. Pair A is best hand
There should be no surprise that Pair A is the best hand. Having a pair A, helps you to easily get the best possible double pair combo or three-of-kind combo. While it might be harder to strike straight or flush with it, those scenarios are typically less likely to happen. Thus, making pair A better in general.
2. Offsuit 72 is the worst hand
This might be less known to people and it could be counter intuitive. Some might have thought that perhaps Offsuit J2 would be worse than Offsuit 72. But, that is not the case.
To understand why this is the case, we can start thinking about what are combinations that are most likely to lead to a winning combo assuming no one folds. Given any hands, we are more likely to win with double pair, followed by 3-of-a-kind, straight flush and so forth.
With offsuit 72, we are more likely to win double pair of pair 7 and pair 2, followed by three-of-a-kind and so on. However, it is also worthwhile to note that it is highly like other players has a better double pair or three-of-a-kind. This bring us to the next important lesson to learn.
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3. Having a suited, closely connected hand with A, K or Q is better than having pairs that is less than 9
If you were to investigate the table or chart, the hand ranked 5th is Suited AK. What is even more interesting is pairs hand only took 6 spots from rank 1 to rank 20. Most of the remaining spots were taken up by suited, closely connected hands with a high card like A, K or Q.
The reason for this is similar to previous point that we made. It is more frequent that players will win using double pairs or 3-of-a-kind. Therefore, having a higher card helps to push you to a better standing to win.
One final note on this topic - Pair 9 is the last pair hand ranked in the top 20 hands. Playing any other pairs hand may not be as good as conventional wisdom might suggest.
4. Winning chance drops fast within the top 7 ranked hands
This is the lesson that really took us by surprised. While developing our poker odds calculator, we did had a sense that odds of winning was somewhat asymmetric. But, the chart above really solidify how much the asymmetry was.
Within the top 7 ranked hands, the probability of winning drops really fast from paired A to paired K and so forth. If you get the top 7 hands, you really should work hard to get through the preflop.
5. You are more likely to win a 6 players match than a 9 players one
A player with hands that are in the top 7 ranks in a 6 players game have a much better chance of winning in a 9 players game. For example, Paired A has roughly 49.5% preflop winning probability in a 6-player game compared to only 35% in a 9-players game. While 14.5% difference is not as big as it sounds, it has a significant impact on the pot odds that you will need to make a value play. In short, it might be easier to make money off a 6 players game rather than a 9 players game.
6. In a no-folding six players match, your hand range to play is very large
This point is not as crucial as other points we have made. But, we find this observation quite interesting although it is unlikely to happen in real life.
Suppose that we are in a no-folding 6 players Texas Hold'Em match. During every betting session, our pot odds is 5-to-1. This means that for every $1 we bet, we stand to win $5.
Based on this pot odds, our break-even pot equity or winning odds is around 16.67%. Using the chart above, we can see that we can play any hands better than rank 106. This means that players can play 105 types of hands out of 169 types (59.2% of all types) and still perform better than break even! Basically, you have a very large hand range to play in this type of situation.
Nonetheless, this is a just-for-fun analysis, which does not happen that often in real life. Based on some of our experience playing, it could happen sometimes during preflop though.
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7. Our hand rankings are similar to Sklansky hand groups
Poker Hands Odds Preflop
Sklansky hand groups was formulated by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Both of these old school poker players understand the math very well. It is no surprise that our hand rankings aligns very well with their proposed hand groups.
Sklansky hand group proposes that Tier 1 group consists of pair A, pair K, pair Q, pair J and suited AK. These cards are essentially ranked 1 to 5 via our Monte Carlo simulation. The same observation can be made for Sklansky Tier 2 and Tier 3 hand group.