From there you are a little better than 1 in 3 to complete the flush by the river.

That happens a little less than 1 in 8 times (similar to the odds of flopping a set with a pocket pair). A flop with two spades would be good, too, providing a flush draw. Range calculators will show Q ♠ 8 ♠ only performs around 2.5% better than Q ♦ 8 ♣ against a random hand, and here the likelihood is the player is up against opponents holding better-than-average hands.Īn all-spade flop would be nice, of course, but that only happens about 1 in 118 times. In other words, there are very few encouraging flops for someone playing such a hand. Even if you flop a straight - which requires a flop of exactly J x 10 x 9 x - you don’t have the nuts. You’ll flop trip queens or trip eights about 1 in 73 times. You’ll flop two pair (queens and eights) about 1 in 48 times. Pairing either the queen or eight isn’t going to be terribly promising with such poor kickers. Q x 8 x-unsuited is a poor preflop hand under most circumstances, particularly when out of position. The player might well fold a hand like Q ♦ 8 ♣, but being suited encourages the call. Say the cutoff raises, the button calls, and it folds to the big blind who looks down at Q ♠ 8 ♠. It happens frequently in NLHE that the fact of being suited will encourage a player to stick around in a hand he or she might otherwise not play - will tip the balance in those marginal spots where an opponent has raised and either folding or calling seem equally valid choices to make. That means your starting hand will be suited a little under one-fourth of the time (about 23.5%).*

You stand to get a pocket pair once every 17 hands, a non-suited unpaired hand 12 times every 17 hands, and a suited unpaired hand 4 times every 17 hands. There are 1,326 different starting hands in hold’em. Being dealt two cards of the same suit can provide an extra temptation to play a hand, even if the cards are of low rank, not connected, and other factors like being out of position would recommend folding the hand.īut just how valuable is it to start out suited in no-limit hold’em? It’s a debate in which many players - including accomplished pros - still come down on either side, with some arguing for the importance of suitedness and others wanting to dismiss it entirely. Many no-limit hold’em players, especially those just starting out or of the “recreational” variety, will justify what might appear to be very loose starting hand requirements with the above statement.

Odds of a texas holdem poker hand