How can I improve my hand-reading? I often get asked this question. It's an interesting question because in a way it's the same as asking How can I get better at poker? Hand reading is such an integral part of the game, that there is unlikely be a simple answer to this simple question. Hand reading is something that improves slowly and is the product of a large amount of experience and practice. Nevertheless, we will attempt to accelerate that progress with a few tips and tricks.

Texas Holdem Poker Hand Combinations List
Texas Holdem Card Combinations
Texas Holdem Poker Hand Combinations Free

Notice now the non-paired combinations of hole cards neatly divide into equal groups, both of which are six times as large (78) as the smaller group of pocket pairs (13). The total of 169.
Below is a chart of the Top 10 Starting Hands in Texas Hold’em: Starting Hands: The Power of High Cards. You’ll notice as a common thread in this chart, virtually all these combinations of hands contain various mixes of face cards, which just go to show the power that high cards hold in poker.
Fact: There are 1,326 combinations of starting hands in Texas Hold’em in total. Working out hand combinations using 'known' cards. Let’s say we hold KQ on a flop of KT4 (suits do not matter). How many possible combinations of AK and TT are out there that our opponent could hold? Unpaired hands.
There are a total of exactly 1,326 different starting hand combinations in Texas Hold'em poker. However, many of them are practically identical, e.g. A ♥ K ♣ is exactly the same hand as A ♦ K ♠ before the flop. If you group these identical hands together, you get 169 different starting hand groups - 13 pairs, 78 suited combinations,.

'Texas Hold'em': combinations. As in any other poker, the winner heredetermined by certain combinations of cards. Before you start playing 'Texas Hold'em', the combination must be learned first. The order of their following by seniority determines whether you won in a particular hand or not. In fact, this is the main rule of 'Texas Hold'em.'

1. Understanding Ranges

We often refer to a range in percentage format. For example, “our opponent has a 3-bet range of 10%”. On it's own this statement has extremely limited meaning. Logic tells us that these 10% of hands are probably reasonably strong. But that idea is not conferred in a frequency or percentage. Our opponent could be 3betting the worst 10% of hands.

In other words there has to be more to a range than just a frequency. Sure, the frequency is extremely useful, but we also need to assign a type to that range.

Merged/Depolarized/Linear – Ideally this is the easiest type of range to understand. The three terms here can be used interchangeably. The notion of “linear” suggests that we are referring to only the top hands. The irony is that there is no way of knowing which the top hands are, it really depends on how we rank them. Hands have no equity in the absolute sense, they only have equity when compared to another hand or range. So some hands might have good equity vs certain ranges but not so good equity vs other ranges. We may not even choose to rank hands in terms of equity. In fact, the deeper the stacks get in general the less we care about equity as opposed to playbility.

Even if we identify our opponent's range as linear 10% (which is a great start), we still want to observe if he shows a preference or leaning to any specific types of holdings over others.

So there is no “correct” or “absolute” version of a linear range, it will be partly subjective. Most people would agree that AA is the best hand in NLHE, but would they choose A9o or 9Ts as part of their linear range if they had to make a choice? A9o has noticeably better equity vs any 2 cards but 9Ts has a playbility advantage in most situations. Even if we identify our opponent's range as linear 10% (which is a great start), we still want to observe if he shows a preference or leaning to any specific types of holdings over others.

Polarized – Generally considered the opposite type of range to that described above. Players generally have a value-range and a bluff-range but not so much of the stuff in between. For example a player decides to fire 3 big barrels on flop, turn, and river. He is unlikely to have a mid-strength hand here, it doesn't make any sense. He either has something really strong, or he is bluffing.

True polarization only occurs on the river (or at least it should if we are playing optimally). On the river we fire our best hands for value and our worst hands as a bluff. On any other street while there are still further cards to come, we do not bluff with our worst possible holdings, simply hands weaker than those we opt to play passively with. For example preflop we'd have something like AA in our value-range and maybe something like Q9s in our bluff range. Q9s is a reasonable hand and has some equity/playability. We wouldn't generally use something like 23o which would be true polarization. The same applies on the flop and turn. We don't generally bluff with zero-equity holdings, we pick those with some equity/potential.

Generally we recognize a polarized range when someone is playing aggressively across multiple streets, especially facing a three-barrel. Any time our opponent is essentially representing a super strong hand which is not made frequently he can be considered polarized.

Condensed – Players often overlook this type of range, but it is nonetheless very important. It's common to mistakenly assume that there are only 2 main types of range, polarized and depolarized. Condensed is similar to a merged range except it doesn't contain super strong holdings. So imagine something like a J78ss texture and our opponent decides to check/call. He is unlikely to check/call garbage here. He is also unlikely to check/call any super strong hand like straights or sets. These need protection on such a drawy texture and would likely get check/raised. So our opponent has a range that consists of mid-strength hands and draws, but no air, and no nuts.

Texas Holdem Poker Hand Combinations List

As a rough guide someone who is passively calling down is more likely to have a condensed range while someone who is being aggressive is more likely to have a polarized range.

Capped – Very similar to a condensed range. The main difference is that a capped range could consist entirely of air hands while a condensed range has some showdown hands. In the example above on the J78ss we could say that our opponent is capped if the turn card is blank. If the turn card completes possible draws then our opponent is no longer capped. Identifying capped ranges is a crucial part of increasing our non-showdown winnings (red-line).

Weighted – Ranges can have different weightings. Even if we know our opponent has a 10% polarized range it's good to be able to specify which percentage of that range is for value and which percentage of that range is a bluff. It makes a big difference whether our opponent is “weighted towards value”, or “weighted towards bluffs”.

2. Thinking Backwards

Hopefully if you are reading this article you already get the basic idea of hand-reading. Our opponent starts out with all possible combinations of hands. Based on his actions we remove combinations of hands that don't make sense and his range gets progressively narrower. By the river we have hopefully narrowed his range down to one of a few possible holdings and can make the best decision vs that range.

Sometimes this is not the best way to do things however. The human brain is not really wired to keep track of hundreds of different hand combinations at the same time. Sometimes it is significantly easier to focus on what our opponent does not have rather than what he has. So if he's representing something strong on the river and we know he would have raised it on an earlier street then it's not necessary to visualise his entire range in order to understand that we have a call.

By the river we have hopefully narrowed our opponent's range down to one of a few possible holdings and can make the best decision vs that range.

So depending on the exact situation it might be easier to think about what our opponent has or it might be easier to think about what he does not have. Experiment with both depending on the situation.

3. Combinatorics

We at least need a vague idea of how to employ combinator