Categorization of Starting Hands

The value of the first two cards in Texas Hold'em can be understood by examining their suits and ranks or if they are paired. The 169 unique starting hands belongs to one of five categories: pairs, suited connectors, suited gapped cards, connecting cards or gapped cards. How the two cards fit together determines what kind of potential the starting hands has.

Definitions

What it means that cards are paired, suited, or connected is explained here. After these definitions are thoroughly dissected, examples of the five categories are given – when combinations of the definitions are used.

Pairs

With a pair as a starting hand then you have something even before the community cards has hit the board. That is the immediate attraction that a paired starting hand has. All other hands has to "hit" something in order to become a powerful hand. A pair is easily spotted, as long as they are of the same rank they are a pair such as:

or

Intuitively we understand that the first hand is to be preferred. Even if they are both pairs, a pair of fours is not a strong hand by itself. A pair of queens on the other hand might be able to win the pot by itself.

Suits

The two first cards are either suited or unsuited.

Suited Cards
Two suited cards have the obvious potential of making a flush. Again they need help from the board to become a flush. A hand with 4 diamonds is not better than a hand that is not even close to being a flush. Starting hands such as:

or

are both suited. However the value of the first hand is much greater than the second one (if we can even talk about the value of a starting hand and 9 3 in the same sentence). Compare the hands by considering what happens if an ace and a nine hits the board or – the even bigger tragedy for the second hand – that three diamonds completes the flushes.

Unsuited Cards
Identifying unsuited are cards is a no-brainer, although you do need to be a little alert since wishful thinking after a long session has been known to lead players into identifying a diamond-suited and a heart-suited card as two beautiful red cards! Unsuited cards such as:

or

can make a flush but so can any two starting cards. There is no added value coming from the suits of the cards above.

Ranks

If the first two cards do not a pair, then the ranks of the cards are either close together of further apart.

Connectors
Ever since the 1860s – when the hand rankings started to include the straight – there has been an added value to a hand with sequential numbers. In Texas Hold’em starting hands with connectors could look as follows:

or .

Explaining which of the two hands that has the biggest value is not as straight forward as the was the case with the previous examples. There is a bigger possibility for the 6-5 to make straight but do not let this fool you into thinking that it is better hand just because of that. The value of high cards by themselves is huge!

But if we for now only look at the straight possibilities we see that A-K can only be completed to a straight in one way as the A-K lies at the end of the spectrum. A queen, a jack, and a ten turns the AK starting hand into a straight: AK-Q-J-T. We have actually neglected the worst straight here 5-4-3-2-A that is possible as well, since the ace can be regarded as the highest and the lowest ranked card. The reason for skipping it, is that four cards are needed to create that straight.

The 65 on the other hand are "true" connectors. There are four three card combinations (any suits are not portrayed as they lack significance in this case) that completes the straight. 9-8-7, 8-7-4, 8-4-3 and 4-3-2 fits the starting hand as: 9-8-7-65, 8-7-65-4,7-65-4-3, and 65-4-3-2.

Gapped Cards
If the two starting cards are not connectors they are unconnected, obviously!. But there is added value to the starting hand if the unconnected cards are: one-gapped, two-gapped, or three-gapped. If the gap is bigger, then four cards are needed in order to make a straight. Two examples of gapped cards are:

or .

The first hand can become a straight by adding the cards: A-K-J, K-J-9, or J-9-8 as: A-K-Q-J-T, K-Q-J-T-9, or Q-J-T-9-8. That is three different three card combinations.

The second hand only has one possibility to become a straight (with three more cards) and that is when 8-7-6 is added to make the 9-high straight: 9-8-7-6-5.

Two-gapped cards has two possible three card combinations that completes a straight.

After having discussed the number of combinations that completes a straight for gapped cards it becomes beneficial to treat the A-K as gapped cards too as it is a connector merely on a technicality. They work just as a three-gapped card combination, there is only one three card combination that completes the straight. In the same way for example the 3-2 is best treated as two-gapped cards.

Categories

We are now in the position to give examples of cards that belong to each of the five categories mentioned at the top of the article.

Pairs
or

Suited Connectors
or

Suited Gapped Cards
or

Connecting Cards
or

Gapped Cards
or

OK, with this reasoning one can realize why a pair of aces is the best starting hand in Texas Hold'em, and why 7-2 offsuit is the worst starting hand. This article has also laid down a good foundation for understanding the added value of a suited connector starting hand; the article should also have drummed out anyones desire to play with a four gapped starting hand. But what is a good starting hand?. This article has not explained this, it has only gotten into the potential of card combinations.