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Pre Flop Hand Probability
There is alot to take into consideration when trying to understand the probability of being dealt specific starting hands pre flop. The first thing you need to know is how many possible hands there are. In any form of poker the suites matter but when considering holdem starting hands suited and unsuited often matters more. If we consider this there are 1326 possible starting hands.
Next we need to think about how many combinations of a certin starting hands there are. For any pocket pair there are 6 combinations. Let's use pocket Aces to show this 1.AsAc 2.AsAd 3.AsAh 4.AcAd 5.AcAh 6.AdAh. When you try a hand like Ace King the number of combinations goes up increasing the chance of being dealt that hand. There is a graph below that I hope helps you understand your probability of being delt the hands you want to play.
With so few good starting hands the chart below will help you understand probabilitly more and actualy move you in a great direction to understanding and exploiting VPIP or voluntarly put money in the pot. Artical coming soon!
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340-
320-
300-
280-
260-
240-
220-
200-
180-
160-
140-
120-
100-
80-
60-
40-
20-
0-
T
O
T
A
L
N
U
M
B
E
R
O
F
H
A
N
D
S
Y
O
U
N
E
E
D
T
O
S
E
E
T
O
S
E
E
S
P
E
C
I
F
I
C
S
T
A
R
T
I
N
G
H
A
N
D
S
O
N
C
E
SPECIFIC STARTING HANDS
P
O
C
K
E
T
P
A
I
R
*
* SPECIFIC PAIR NOT THE GROUP OF PAIRS
** X= CARD LESS THAN JACK
0.45%
K
K
T
H
R
O
U
G
H
J
J
1.4 %
10
10
T
H
R
O
U
R
H
6
6
2.3%
5
5
T
H
R
O
U
G
H
2
2
1.8%
A
K
O
R
K
Q
S
U
I
T
E
D
A
K
O
R
K
Q
O
F
F
S
U
I
T
0.9%
A
Q
O
R
A
J
S
U
I
T
E
D
0.6%
A
Q
O
R
A
J
O
F
F
S
U
I
T
1.8%
A
X
S
U
I
T
E
D
8
*
*
2.7%
A
X
O
F
F
S
U
I
T
*
*
8.1%
A
N
Y
P
A
I
R
5.9%
NUMBERS ARE ESTIMATES AND ARE NOT EXACT
0.3%
PROBABILITY OF HITTING A SPECIFIC STARTING HANDS PRE FLOP
ODDS 1 TO (X) OR 1 OUT OF (X)
So how does this help you? Now I hope you understand your chances of being dealt the hands you want to play. The info above is going to bleed over in the next article or page Exploiting VPIP. As you can see the chances of hitting the hands you want to play is low. Your are going to have to wait for good hands. This is why being patient is a quality GOOD poker players have. If you only see the flop 18% of the time 78% of the time you are not playing how boring. THAT IS POKER. Your have to sit around and wait for good hands plain and simple. That does not mean you sit there staring into space. GET TO KNOW THE PLAYERS. Taking Notes is a good skill online players need to try and use. It may not work for everyone but it can't hurt. Use the down time to watch for patterns in different players play and all sorts of other stuff. (An article coming soon on the subject.) Another good way to use the info is if you have seen a player have pocket Aces 3 times already and soon after you pick up King King and the player movers all in on you. They probably don't have AA this time and you can take their chips. If you are paying attention to the table and know the probability of having certain hands pre flop you can start to make better reads on the other players hands. You don't have the memorize the chart but having a good understanding of it is priceless poker knowledge.
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