Texas Holdem Winning Hands Printable
Knowing your poker hands is crucial to playing a solid game at the table, and regardless of whether you’re playing Texas Hold’em, or Omaha, you’ll always want to know the value of your hand. When you have this knowledge at your disposal, you’ll be able to make an informed decision on whether to raise, check, call, or fold your hand when it matters most.
In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win.In low games, like razz, the lowest-ranking hands win. Poker Hand Rankings Quiz. Put your knowledge of poker hands to the test with the quiz below.
Texas Hold’em Winning Poker Hands Ranking. In this guide, you’ll see that there are a total of 10 hands in Texas Hold’em poker (or 9 if you don’t count ‘no pair’ as a hand), and we’ll detail these below. (The winning poker hands chart below shows a list of poker hands, ranked best, to worst). Texas Hold’em Poker Rules This is a short guide for beginners on playing the popular poker variant No Limit Texas Hold’em. We will look at the following: 1. The betting options 2. The positions 3. The flow of action 4. The hand rankings 5. Eginner’s terminology We’ll also discuss our top 10 poker terms that every player. Printable poker hands cheat sheet – why should you use it There is no better way to learn Texas Holdem's basics than to grab printable poker hands cheat sheet. As the name suggests, you can print it or have it on your phone and access it whenever you need it.
In this post, we’re going to look at the winning poker hands structure of two different games; Texas Hold’em, and Omaha – and we’ll begin by taking a look at a poker hands chart, followed by the best and worst starting hands. We’ll also show you a list of poker hands to help you make the right decisions in your game.
Texas Hold’em Winning Poker Hands Ranking
In this guide, you’ll see that there are a total of 10 hands in Texas Hold’em poker (or 9 if you don’t count ‘no pair’ as a hand), and we’ll detail these below. (The winning poker hands chart below shows a list of poker hands, ranked best, to worst).
Royal Flush: Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace, all of the same suit.
Straight Flush: Any 5 cards of the same suit, in consecutive order. (I.e. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of spades).
4-of-a-kind: 4 cards of the same value (i.e. the 5 of spades, the 5 of hearts, the 5 of clubs, and the 5 of diamonds).
Full House: A full house consists of one 3-of-a-kind hand, and one pair, so for instance, a full house could be the 2 of spades, the 2 of diamonds, the 2 of clubs, and a pair of Aces.
Flush: Five cards of the same suit (i.e. 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 of hearts).
Straight: Five cards in consecutive order (i.e. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, off-suit).
3-of-a-kind: Three cards of the same value (I.e. 3 of clubs, 3 or spades, and the 3 of hearts).
Two Pair: Two pairs in one hand – i.e. a pair of 2’s, and a pair of 3’s.
One Pair: One singular pair – i.e. a pair of Aces.
No Pair: A no pair hand is when you don’t have any of the above. In this instance, you have what is known as a ‘high card hard’.
Use the poker hands chart above to ensure you’re always in full control of your game!
Omaha Poker Hands Ranking
Omaha uses the exact same hand-ranking process as Texas Hold’em does, and while it may seem as though that’s a little ‘odd’ at first, remember that Omaha is almost identical, aside from the fact that players have four cards, and that betting is usually pot-limit.
This means that a Royal Flush is the best possible hand in a game of Omaha, and high-card (while incredibly unusual due to the 4 cards each player holds) is the lowest possible hand.
For a full guide on playing Omaha, be sure to check out our How to Play Omaha guide.
Best Starting Poker Hands
Knowing your winning poker hands is crucial if you want to play a solid game of poker – and below, we share how to determine whether or not you have a winner on your hand!
Texas Hold’em: The best starting hand is a pair of Aces. A pair of aces (also known as pocket rockets) are a favourite pre-flop over any other starting hand and is almost always one of the best winning poker hands. The second, and third best starting hands are a pair of Kings and Queens respectively, followed by Ace-King suited, pocket Jacks, pocket Tens, and then Ace-Queen suited. The 10th best starting hand is Ace-King Offsuit – which is actually still a very strong hand.
Omaha: Working out winning poker hands in Omaha is a little more complex than Texas Hold’em, when looking at the best starting hands, although mathematically, the best starting hands can be determined.
For example, the strongest hand is AAKK, followed by AAJT, AAQQ, and AAJJ. It’s worth noting however, that the best possible hand in Omaha holds little value against a full-ring of players, hence the need to play aggressively, pre-flop and post-flop; see our poker hands chart for more details.
Worst Poker Starting Hands
Determining the worst starting hands in poker is a little more challenging – largely due to the fact that most players simply have knowledge of the better starting hands – yet knowing what the worst starting hands are is just as important, as it allows you to know when to throw away your hands pre-flop. Below, we look at the worst starting hands for both Texas Hold’em and Omaha.
Texas Hold’em: 2-7 offsuit (this is well-known as the worst starting hand in poker, due to the fact that it’s often used as side-bets in games.) 7-2 offsuit is followed by 8-2 offsuit, 8-3 offsuit, 7-3 offsuit, 6-2 offsuit, 9-2, 9-3, and 9-4 offsuit.
Omaha: Unfortunately, with Omaha, there isn’t an ‘official’ list of worst poker hands – purely due to the fact that there would be too many to list. However, most professionals and poker experts agree that any starting hand that combines any of the worst starting hands in Texas Hold’em generally constitute a very poor starting hand in Omaha too – so it’s worth throwing these away most of the time, pre-flop. If in doubt, consult the list of winning poker hands ranking above.
Table Of Contents
Are you struggling to figure out what starting hands to play and how poker positions change the way you play preflop? You are not alone.
This article isn't a poker strategy crash course. Instead of focusing on generic winning poker tips and bankroll management advice like many other training poker sites do, it gives you something different.
It's a collection of advanced poker charts that improves your poker game by showing you how to play preflop. It gives you a clear overview of the starting hands range you should consider through some handy poker hands chart images, PDFs, and Excel files.
Continue reading to learn:
- And lots more
In other words, if you are looking for an in-depth game strategy guide to learn what is the best way to play poker preflop, you'll love this collection of poker range charts.
Why a Page about Poker Ranges?
All poker players have been there. Short-stacked. Bleeding chips with every orbit while staring at junk hand after junk hand. Feeling their chances of winning the tournament dwindle ever further while their stack continues to shrink.
Finally, they get a halfway decent hand. Nobody has entered the pot.
Is it time to shove?
There's an easy way to find out. Enter poker range charts. These handy tools allow players to see which poker hand ranges to play in preflop scenarios where the pot is unopened and a player plans to shove or fold.
Playing the proper ranges according to preflop charts make it so your play can't be exploited, so memorizing these is the key to short-stacked play.
Read on to learn more and find the accompanied printable poker hand ranges chart as a tool you can study to improve your performance when short-stacked.
What are poker ranges?
For those unfamiliar a poker hand range is simply a set of poker hands that may be held by a player. We try to estimate our opponents' ranges because guessing exact hole cards is a fruitless, nearly impossible exercise in most cases.
For example, if the tightest player you've ever seen reraises you preflop in hold'em, you may estimate their range to be aces and kings only.
On the other hand, if a player who hasn't folded one hand in an hour calls your raise, you may estimate their range to include any two cards in the deck. Of course, most hand ranges will be somewhere in between.
How Do You Calculate Poker Ranges?
Analyzing ranges can be a tricky proposition, and only by learning game theory and playing thousands of hands can a poker player get better at it.
Including some proper proper preflop strategy in your poker training will help you understand what poker hand ranges they'll play.
The more time you spend playing and watching opponents' hands at showdown, the more clues you'll get about their strategy. That will enable you to get more precise estimates of their ranges when playing future hands.
This video from poker pro Jonathan Little explores the concept in a little more depth and tries to answer the question 'how do I think in terms of hand ranges?'
How to Use Preflop Range Charts
Every position at the poker table has a certain range of starting hands that can be profitably shoved at a given stack depth.
Generally, these stack depths are at 20 big blinds or less.
Preflop range charts outline the hands that constitute a winning shoving range.
A player who knows these charts can shove with a positive expected value (+EV) no matter what cards are held by the opponents remaining to act.
Here on PokerNews you find free preflop poker charts for five different stack depths at both six-max tables and nine-handed tables.
Here's how to use them:
- Figure out how many big blinds you have in your stack.
- Go to the corresponding chart. If you have a stack that doesn't match one exactly, pick the closest one.
- Go to the column that corresponds to your seat.
- Scroll down until you get to the row that corresponds to your hole cards — the chart starts with pairs at the top, then ace-high hands, then king-high and so on.
- You can shove all of the hands listed there, as well as any hands to the left that were shoved in an earlier seat.
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Poker Ranges Charts
Here are 10 essential poker charts to help your preflop poker game.
They're broken into two categories: full-ring ranges and six-max ranges. Each category features shoving hands for five different stack sizes, raised in increments of three big blinds.
As you'll often have stacks in between these sizes, it may take a small amount of guesswork and intuition to expand or tighten the ranges a bit and get the appropriate strategy.
1. Full Ring Ranges Poker Charts
2. Six-Max Ranges Poker Charts
Use the Printable Poker Charts on Excel!
Want to bring all the poker charts with you? Make a copy of this shared Excel file and download the full collection of our advanced poker charts.
To create your own copy of all the poker charts on this article:
- Click on 'File'
- Then click on 'Create a Copy'
- Done! You can now use all these poker ranges charts to improve your win rate!
These are optimal poker ranges for winning chips if your opponents are calling correctly. Each poker chart should be adjusted depending on reads you can gather when you play cash games or tournament poker.
- If your opponents are calling too wide, shove a little tighter so you're more likely to have the best of it.
- If your opponents aren't calling wide enough, widen your range of hands and shove a few extra hands because you are likely to be able to steal their blinds.
Considerations should also be made for the state of the poker tournament, i.e. proximity to the money bubble, a pay jump, or a final table.
These can heavily influence calling ranges and proper shoving strategy, changing the way you should play if you are using these poker charts to play winning poker.
Some bits of the poker ranges charts may look a bit weird, specifically in regard to suited ace-high hands.
This is because some of the small suited aces perform slightly better against calling ranges than middle aces. At certain stack depths and positions, it's better to shove ace-five suited than ace-seven suited, for example.
How to memorize poker ranges
Given that there are 169 different hands in Texas hold'em poker, differently sized tables, and slightly different shoving ranges for every stack depth, it's unreasonable to think you'll be able to perfectly memorize an exactly correct shoving strategy.
Furthermore, doing so would probably be counter-productive, as you're better off dedicating your brainpower and efforts elsewhere.
Getting a rough idea of correct preflop poker ranges to shove will allow you to play well with a short stack while still improving your game in other aspects with your remaining study time.
There's no handy acronym like 'Roy G. Biv' (rainbow colors) or 'PEMDAS' (order of mathematical operations) to help you remember the shoving strategy offered in all the preflop range charts on this page.
And despite what other poker guides and poker training sites say, the purpose of poker charts like these ones is not to have you memorise everything. That's not how you will improve your win rate.
The best way to learn is to make your shoves and then continually check afterward whether it was correct. Eventually, the raising ranges will start to take shape in your memory.
Here are a few poker tips to keep in mind:
- Pairs are great to jam with. If you're under 10 big blinds, you can almost jam with any pair from any position. With such a small stack, waiting for top pairs is not a good idea.
- If your cards are unpaired, it's obviously preferable to have high suited cards.
- Small suited hands lose a lot of value in preflop shoving situations compared to their deep-stacked playability. Many hands wind up unimproved by the river, so the higher cards will win in these spots.
- Still, hands with a high card and low card (something like king-five offsuit) might be favored against something like ten-nine suited in a head-to-head clash, but the latter performs better against opponents' calling hands, so it's preferable to shove with.
The biggest jumps in shoving range will come the closer you get to the big blind — i.e., the difference between shoving in the first two seats is far less than the difference in shoving between the button and small blind.
This is because one extra fold represents a much bigger portion of the remaining opponents, meaning the likelihood of running into a big hand has decreased more significantly. So, get comfortable shoving very wide in the small blind and still quite wide from the button and cutoff.
Most Common Preflop Ranges
All percentile ranges you see below are taken from pokerhandrange.com
Top 7%
If you run into a very tight opponent, expect here or she to be opening something like the top 7% of hands from early or even middle position. Only the tightest ranges will play this way.
What does that look like? About as strong as you'd expect:
- 88
- ATs , AQo
- KJs
Top 15%
Opening the top 15% of hands is still quite tight, but allows a bit more play down to the strong offsuit Broadways, most of the suited aces, and all of the suited Broadways.
It's probably close to a 'typical' opening range for a standard live player:
- 66
- A5s , ATo
- K9s , KJo
- Q9s , JTs
Top 35%
If you run into a player who is aggressively trying to steal seemingly every time it's folded to them in late position, their range might be in the top 35% or so of hands, or potentially even wider.
That's going to include a great many suited combos with even just one Broadway, as well as some fairly weak offsuit holdings down to jack-nine:
- 33
- A2s , A5o
- K2s , K8o
- Q4s , Q9o
- J7s , J9o
- T7s
- 97s
- 87s
Top 60%
Only the absolute loosest, most aggressive opposition will play a range this wide, but it certainly does happen.
The top 60% is usually reserved for short-stacked players shoving from the button and small blind, so if you wonder what that range might look like, here it is:
- 22
- Ax
- K2s , K3o
- Q2s , Q5o
- J2s , J7o
- T2s , T7o
- 94s , 97o
- 84s
- 74s
- 64s
- 54s
Additional Readings
Now that you have our starting hands range and you have all the information you need on your Excel printable file, it's time to continue this poker lab experiment with more poker guides.
If you are really committed to playing better poker, here's a list that will help you reach your goals.
Texas Holdem Order Of Winning
- Essential Poker Tips: a complete collection of the most effective poker tips we know. While some might be more beginner-oriented, other tidbits might help also more seasoned players.
- Poker Equity: one of the most popular poker articles ever published in our advanced poker strategy section. This is one of those must-read poker guides you need to go through at least once in your (poker) life.
- Poker Positions: having our printable poker range charts in PDF is not enough to become a winning poker player. You need a lot more — including this guide to poker positions. Learn how every position named at the table and learn how to use everything to your advantage when you fire up your poker software.
- The Best Online Poker Sites: the world-famous and award-winnings PokerNews rankings. If you ever wanted to play a hand of online poker, this is the perfect starting point for you.
- Mobile Poker Sites: some poker software a great on desktop, but how about their mobile apps? Read this one to find out what brands offer the top mobile products in the industry.
- Free Poker Sites: Not all online games cost money. All the sites on this list offer great poker games that will cost you nada.
- Poker Freerolls: want to win real money prizes but don't want to risk your own? play a freeroll! This page gives you access to all the top free poker tournaments happening right now.
How To Run A Texas Holdem Tournament
Additional Note:
Texas Hold'em Winning Hands Chart
The shoving ranges in this article, while available in many forms on different poker resources, were specifically taken from SnapShove. Check out SnapShove for more information about preflop shoving and calling strategy.