What is the playability of starting hands in poker

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Playability – the simplicity of drawing a starting hand on subsequent streets of betting. Complex situations on postflop are often the result of erroneous actions on preflop. A balanced choice of starting combinations will help you avoid a large number of questionable decisions in which the probability of error is high. Your goal is to choose the hands that have the least risk of getting into a difficult situation when playing on the post-flop. 

1. Dominance factor 

We want to join the fight for large pots only with strong couples. This is only possible if there are enough pair with a weaker kicker in the opponent's spectrum, with which he will continue to play.

• For example, with a top couple and a top kicker:

Our hand:	Flop:

With AKO, we beat all the top pairs with the kicker below , which will be difficult for the opponent to get rid of. With a combination of type, the opponent will have to make a difficult decision on the subsequent streets. His hand will rarely get better. In this case, we dominate.

2. Hands with nuts potential

There are many starting hands that do not have a high absolute equity, but have good playability due to the national potential and stability of their equity (there is a separate article on this on our website).

• For example, suited connectors collecting straight or flush draw, or pocket pair -

If we get our strait or flush draw (20% chance on the flop), we will have a good chance to collect a very strong combination. If our pocket pair gets into the set (12% chance on the flop), we will have big power and at the same time a poorly readable combination. If the draw is not collected, we will rarely find ourselves in a difficult situation. We can say that the playability of suited hands and connectors, as well as low pocket pair, is much better than that of combinations that potentially collect top pairs. 

3. dominate by straight or flush

When playing suited and bound hands, you should pay attention to the rank of the highest card, since by collecting a flush or straight, you can also get under dominate.

• For example:

  Our hand:	Flop:

We got a flush draw and on the turn that came out - we collected the flush. Villain may have flushes that are younger or older. In the first case, you are far ahead and the opponent has almost no chance of winning at the autopsy. In the second variant, you are far behind and under strong dominate. If you do not have cards that will give you a straight flush, then there is no chance of winning. Hitting the post-flop flush in the flush or set in the set and so on is not very frequent, but nevertheless, this must also be taken into account. 

The higher the connector on which you want to assemble the strait, the more nut straits it collects in relation to non-nut straits. For example, the connector is collected only nuts strait from the flop. And the connector already collects 1 non-nut nuts straight - this is a straight on the board, where the opponent may have a straight on, which hits us. There will be 2 non-nutrient straits and so on to reduce the seniority of the connector. The same goes for the flash combination. When we have, we can only collect nut flushes. And for 1 flush with an ace, it can be stronger than ours, and so on.

4. Main categories of starting hands

Using the above factors, you can divide all starting hands into ten categories by playability. 

Starting hands table

Name	Designation
1.Premium hand range	,,, ,
2. suited hands with high kicker	, ,
3. Medium pocket pair	-
4. suited broadway	,, ,
5. Small pocket pair	-
6. suited Ax	,, ,
7. suited connectors	,,, ,
8. offsuited hands with high kicker	, ,
9. Other suited hands	,, ,
10. Other offsuited hands	,, ,

1. The first 7 categories of hands have a fairly high playability and, as a result, a good implementation of their equity. They are not all equal, there are stronger and weaker hands, more and less playable. However, on these hands, we often gather strong nuts combinations and are not so often dominated.
2. Category 8 - average playability. We can put together pretty good pair and sometimes straight. Beware of dominance in pairs.
3. Category 9 - weak playability. For beginners, it is better not to use these hands in the game at all. For the rest, the hands begin to be suitable for playing starting from late positions as a racer or for defending the BB.
4. Category 10 - lack of playability. It is played only by professionals on special rare occasions.

5. Conclusion

Since the starting hands in poker initially have different characteristics, the player must have a good understanding of in which situations and how to play certain hands. This is a fundamental part of the game strategy. The basis of your professionalism and the quality of the game. In poker, this is most often called the starting hands chart. You can get the basic starting hands chart from Poker University for free, as well as a video from section 1 of the course “preflop and postflop game basics”. Charts together with the video will immediately give you an excellent starting strategy. You can easily get them by making and linking 1 any room to our website.

If you want to get better and more detailed preflop strategies based on the real practice of low-limit players and opponents, you can purchase a paid video course "Optimal preflop range - Level 2". This course is also available for free from Poker University, this is possible through a special loyalty program. Do everything as described in the link below and gradually you will have all our professional courses.