Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Chart

By NorthernNuts · Facts checked November 14, 2026

How to read the chart

There are 169 different starting hands in Hold'em. Pairs run down the diagonal. Suited hands, marked "s", are above it. Offsuit hands, marked "o", are below. In the all-seats view the colour shows the earliest seat a hand is good enough to open from.

The ranges, seat by seat

"66+" means sixes and every higher pair. "ATs+" means ace-ten suited and every better suited ace. These are for a six-handed table with stacks around 100 big blinds, when the pot has not been raised. At a nine-handed table, the three extra early seats should play tighter than the under-the-gun range here.

I use these as a default and adjust from there. They are not solver output. A solver mixes some hands and shifts with rake and stack size. For anyone still learning, a fixed chart you actually follow beats a perfect one you cannot remember.

Why position changes everything

Under the gun, five players still have cards behind you, and one of them will hold a big hand often enough to punish a loose raise. On the button only the two blinds are left, and you act last on every later street. That is why the button range is three times as wide.

The best starting hands

Measured by how often they win an all-in against one random hand, the top ten are AA (85%), KK (82%), QQ (80%), JJ (78%), TT (75%), 99, 88, AK suited, 77 and AQ suited. Aces are dealt once in 221 hands.

The worst starting hands

7-2 offsuit has the reputation, because it cannot make a straight using both cards and its high card is a seven. By raw all-in equity against a random hand 3-2 offsuit is actually last, at about 32%. Either way: fold them.

When someone has already raised

This chart is for opening the pot. Facing a raise you need a stronger hand than you would need to open yourself, because the raiser's range is already strong. A simple rule while learning: against an early-position raise, continue with roughly the under-the-gun range and fold the rest.

See how any two hands compare in the odds calculator, or test a hand against a whole range in the equity calculator. The printable cheat sheet has this chart on one page with the odds tables.

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Common questions

How many starting hands are there in Texas Hold'em?

There are 1,326 two-card combinations, which reduce to 169 different hands once you ignore which suits are involved: 13 pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 offsuit hands.

What is the best starting hand in Texas Hold'em?

Pocket aces. They win about 85% of the time against one random hand.

What is the worst starting hand?

7-2 offsuit is the traditional answer. By all-in equity against a random hand, 3-2 offsuit is slightly worse.

What percentage of hands should I play?

At a six-handed table, about 12% from under the gun rising to about 42% on the button, when nobody has raised before you.