Texas Hold Em Basic Strategy
- Top Ten Pre-flop Hands

For beginners to Texas Hold Em there are a few things you can do to find your feet using basic strategy to limit your losses whilst learning the game.

Think of Texas Hold Em as a game of patience where to win more hands you have to wait, and sometimes, wait more. Don't play many hands. In fact, you shouldn't be playing in many hands at all.

A good basic strategy for beginners, and for seasoned players is only to play the top hands pre-flop (before the three cards are placed in the centre of the poker table.) I've listed the top ten hands below and these, in my experience, are the only hands worth playing unless the other players are all playing very loose, even then, employ this basic playing strategy and you'll win more Texas Hold Em hands.

The top ten pre-flop hands are :

   A - A
   K - K
   Q - Q
   A - K
   J - J
   10 - 10
   9 - 9
   8 - 8
   A - Q
   7 - 7

To help you reference these top ten poker hands quickly, put this page in your favorites.

When dealt one of these hands, if you think the other players will follow, then raise with these. Show confidence and this will scare off the lesser hands whilst putting doubt into the minds of the stronger players who will hopefully stay in but fold later in the hand.

The only problem with playing this Texas Hold Em basic strategy is that during a longer game, your plays may become a bit predictable. If I feel that the players are starting to get a feel for my game, I'll counteract this by playing the occasional hand that isn't quite as strong as the ten top poker hands listed above. Only very occasionally though.

Of course, during your Texas Hold Em game, you will have to post the blinds, and in this case, since you have to put money in the pot anyway, you may as well play lesser hands, but if the hand is really poor then fold rather than keep up with the raises.

This Texas Hold Em basic poker strategy works for both limit and no-limit games and will increase your chances of winning more hands.