Of these 169 possible combinations only 40 (23.7%) are profitable: on an average of just under 1 million hands played per combination of hole cards, the average profit was 0.01 BB or higher. 78 suited hole cards (ace + 12 other cards, king + 11 other cards, queen + 10 other cards etc).There are a total of 52 x 51 = 2’652 possible starting hands. As the order in which the hole cards are dealt to you is not important (it does not matter if you get dealt ace-king or king-ace) and if we neglect the colors (it only plays a role whether the two hole cards are suited or not), then we are left with 169 different Texas Hold’em starting hands: Let’s look at these statements in detail. Half of all profits are attributable to the five most profitable starting hands (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and Ace-King suited).
We have taken a closer look at these statistics and were able to draw some very interesting conclusions:
But the resulting conclusions can be but also be transferred to the early phases of tournaments (SnG, MTT, DoN). The former Ongame poker site “Pokerroom” (now part of Bwin) had published an analysis of over 120 million starting hands on its website. The figures were derived from cash games (heads up, shorthanded, full ring tables).
