Licentia's Starting Hands Chart

[Licentia]

Hey all,

I spent the entire night running Showdown Sims in my poker training software, trying to figure out how people like the Poker Professor develop their starting hands strategy. The result is that I have created my own starting hands strategy, and I decided I would share it with the gang here.

Now keep in mind that if a pot is raised in Fixed Limit - which I play mostly - the odds are always good to call the raise, simply because of the fixed betting structure. So if I raised to 20cents in early position and someone comes and re-raises me up to 30cents, I am getting 5 to 1 odds to make the call (not including the blinds). This is of course true so long as I never limp on a drawing hand unless I have enough callers before me.

Anyway, quick note about my starting hands. I have removed five hands from the Professor's Chart, and I will explain why. Pocket pair 33 is a losing hand against 2-6 opponents. Pocket pair 22 is a losing hand against 1-7 opponents. I also removed the following hands: 98s, 87s and 76s. While those three hands are good drawing hands, they are losing hands against one opponent. All of the other drawing hands I have added win heads up. I know I won't play them heads up but I just decided that's where I'd draw the line.

Here they are (not as pretty as the Professor's, I know):

EP RAISE
AA-TT
AK's-AJ's
AK

MP RAISE
99-77
AT's
AQ-AT

LP RAISE
66-44
KQ's-KT's
KQ-KJ

BUTTON RAISE (First to bet into pot)
A9's
K9's
QJ's-Q9's
JT's
A9
KT-K9
QJ-QT

SB RAISE (First to bet into pot)
A8's-A2's
K8's-K7's
A8-A5

DH (4 LIMP)
A9's-A2's
K9's-K5's
QJ's-Q8's
JT's-J8's
T9's-T8's
QJ-QT
JT

I have compacted the hands for space reasons. EP means Early Position, MP is Middle Pos, LP of course is Late Pos. I also have hands that I also raise on the Button and on the SB (Small Blind) for Blind Stealing. Lastly, DH stands for Drawing Hands, which in Fixed Limit require 4 players to limp before me. Oh, and one more thing, I only raise the Button and SB hands if no one has limped/raised before me, because in FL all the limpers would call my raise.

All of the hands I have added play to a positive expectation, so long as they are played in the position I have placed them in. There are a lot more drawing hands in my chart than the Professor's Chart.

Anyway, let me know what you all think. It's so difficult to figure out which hands are best to raise with in EP and MP...

Licentia

PS > I forgot to include instructions on which hands I would call an already raised pot with. I'll add that later.

[tbird2]

I dont play fixed limit so take from this what you will but are you saying you never play pairs below 4's because they dont win in multiway pots? or just that you wont raise them? the value of small pairs comes from when you flop a set. limping in late position or from the blinds behind other limpers, or calling a raise when the pot lays you the right odds is a great way to get paid off when you hit your set.*
of course you have to know when to fold when you miss its unlikely your pocket 3's are going to win if the hand gets to show down.

*(generally 8 to 1 unless you believe theres big implied odds from opponents who wont fold top pair etc.)

///EDIT: nevermind just seen the ps at the bottom of your post, you can probably ignore this. but i'll leave it here just incase it helps.\\\

[Licentia]

Originally Posted by tbird2

I dont play fixed limit so take from this what you will but are you saying you never play pairs below 4's because they dont win in multiway pots?

You know what TBird2, I ran these simulations through a program called Poker Academy Pro. The simulations I ran were done using the "Showdown Calculator" which allows me to run sims with any hand against any number of opponent hands from 1-9. I left all of the opponent hands blank and so all of the results are against my opponents holding any random hand.

I deleted the results for 22 and 33 but I will re-sim them and add them later so you can see what I meant. The results below are multipliers rather than percentages. So long as the multiplier is less than the number of hands in play, the hand is profitable against that many opponents.

For example, AA under 2 hands has the result 1.17. 100/1.17=85% which means that AA will win against 1 random opponent hand 85% of the time; your hand being 1 and your opponent's hand the other 1 equaling 2 hands. In order to be profitable the multiplier needs to be less than 2 for 2 hands, or 10 for 10 hands, because if you both bet $1 you have a $2 pot so you need to win more than 50% of the time in order to profit. Or in the case of 10 hands you'd have a pot of 10x$1=$10 so you'd need to win better than 10% of the time in order to profit.

I wish I hadn't done the multipliers as it's confusing. I am going back over and simming all the hands again to fix this.

But this info below isn't enough to design a starting hands strategy! I realized this after I opened the thread. Poker Academy Pro includes another little program called a "Hand Evaluator" which sims the results of a particular hand - like AA - vs 1-9 opponents as well. But the difference is you can adjust how tight your opponents are. So when I set my opponents to be very tight - which they would be in a raised pot for example - a hand like KQ's is very weak, because a raised pot will most often involve hands like AJs or AQo and pocket pairs.

I have spent many hours working on this and have come up with a pretty good starting hands strategy, but I see it still needs a little bit of work. But I won $6 at $0.10/$0.20 FL Hold'em using it last night.

Look at A5o for a moment for further explanation. Against 1 opponent (2 hands) A5o scores as a winning hand at 1.79 which is less than the 2 that is required to break even. But against 9 opponents (10 hands) A5o is a losing hand with a multiplier over 10 at 11.62. Therefore A5o should never be played against many opponents.

	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
1	AA	1.17	1.36	1.57	1.79	2.04	2.3	2.59	2.9	3.23
2	KK	1.21	1.45	1.72	2.01	2.33	2.68	3.06	3.47	3.87
3	QQ	1.25	1.54	1.87	2.25	2.65	3.1	3.58	4.06	4.56
4	JJ	1.29	1.64	2.04	2.5	3	3.55	4.13	4.69	5.29
5	TT	1.33	1.74	2.22	2.77	3.37	4.03	4.69	5.31	6.02
6	99	1.39	1.87	2.44	3.09	3.81	4.52	5.23	5.95	6.57
7	88	1.45	2.01	2.68	3.43	4.21	5.02	5.78	6.49	7.04
8	77	1.52	2.17	2.94	3.78	4.62	5.46	6.25	6.94	7.51
9	66	1.59	2.33	3.2	4.14	5.05	5.91	6.66	7.35	7.93
10	55	1.67	2.51	3.49	4.52	5.49	6.36	7.09	7.75	8.33
11	44	1.77	2.74	3.84	4.9	5.88	6.71	7.35	7.87	8.4
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
12	AK's	1.51	2	2.46	2.89	3.31	3.73	4.14	4.58	5.05
13	AQ's	1.53	2.06	2.57	3.06	3.53	4.01	4.5	4.97	5.46
14	AJ's	1.55	2.12	2.68	3.21	3.73	4.27	4.8	5.34	5.84
15	AT's	1.57	2.18	2.78	3.36	3.93	4.5	5.07	5.64	6.21
16	A9's	1.62	2.32	3.02	3.71	4.4	5.05	5.74	6.41	7.04
17	A8's	1.65	2.38	3.14	3.87	4.6	5.31	6.02	6.75	7.46
18	A7's	1.68	2.46	3.25	4.03	4.8	5.55	6.28	7.04	7.69
19	A6's	1.71	2.53	3.38	4.21	5.02	5.78	6.53	7.29	8
20	A5's	1.72	2.53	3.34	4.13	4.9	5.58	6.32	7.04	7.69
21	A4's	1.75	2.59	3.44	4.23	5	5.71	6.45	7.09	7.75
22	A3's	1.77	2.64	3.52	4.34	5.1	5.84	6.53	7.24	7.87
23	A2's	1.8	2.71	3.61	4.44	5.26	5.98	6.71	7.4	8.06
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
24	KQ's	1.6	2.16	2.68	3.17	3.63	4.13	4.65	5.12	5.64
25	KJ's	1.62	2.23	2.8	3.33	3.87	4.4	4.92	5.46	6.02
26	KT's	1.65	2.29	2.9	3.48	4.06	4.62	5.2	5.78	6.36
27	K9's	1.7	2.44	3.16	3.84	4.54	5.23	5.91	6.57	7.24
28	K8's	1.76	2.59	3.41	4.21	5	5.74	6.53	7.29	8.06
29	K7's	1.79	2.65	3.52	4.36	5.18	6.02	6.84	7.63	8.4
30	K6's	1.82	2.73	3.66	4.52	5.37	6.21	7.04	7.87	8.62
31	K5's	1.85	2.82	3.77	4.67	5.58	6.41	7.29	8.13	8.92
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
32	QJ's	1.69	2.32	2.89	3.44	3.98	4.5	5.1	5.61	6.21
33	QT's	1.72	2.38	3	3.57	4.16	4.73	5.37	5.91	6.49
34	Q9's	1.77	2.54	3.26	3.96	4.67	5.37	6.06	6.75	7.46
35	Q8's	1.83	2.7	3.53	4.32	5.12	5.91	6.71	7.51	8.26
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
36	JT's	1.77	2.45	3.05	3.63	4.21	4.8	5.4	5.95	6.53
37	J9's	1.84	2.62	3.33	4.01	4.71	5.43	6.09	6.75	7.4
38	J8's	1.91	2.78	3.59	4.4	5.18	5.98	6.75	7.51	8.26
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
39	T9's	1.9	2.67	3.37	4.04	4.73	5.4	6.06	6.71	7.29
40	T8's	1.97	2.84	3.63	4.4	5.15	5.95	6.71	7.35	8.13
										
(Add in 98's and 87's, etc..)										
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
41	AK	1.55	2.11	2.65	3.17	3.71	4.25	4.83	5.46	6.13
42	AQ	1.57	2.18	2.8	3.41	4.01	4.65	5.37	6.06	6.89
43	AJ	1.6	2.25	2.93	3.61	4.32	5.1	5.84	6.71	7.63
44	AT	1.62	2.33	3.06	3.83	4.6	5.43	6.32	7.24	8.26
45	A9	1.68	2.49	3.37	4.32	5.31	6.41	7.51	8.84	10.1
46	A8	1.71	2.58	3.53	4.56	5.64	6.84	8.13	9.52	10.86
47	A7	1.74	2.67	3.71	4.83	6.02	7.29	8.69	10.1	11.62
48	A6	1.78	2.77	3.87	5.07	6.36	7.69	9.17	10.63	12.34
49	A5	1.79	2.77	3.83	4.97	6.17	7.4	8.77	10.2	11.62
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
50	KQ	1.65	2.3	2.92	3.54	4.18	4.83	5.52	6.28	7.09
51	KJ	1.68	2.38	3.06	3.77	4.46	5.23	6.06	6.84	7.75
52	KT	1.7	2.46	3.21	3.98	4.78	5.58	6.45	7.46	8.4
53	K9	1.77	2.64	3.55	4.5	5.49	6.57	7.75	9	10.3
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
54	QJ	1.75	2.48	3.18	3.87	4.58	5.37	6.17	7.04	8
55	QT	1.78	2.57	3.32	4.08	4.9	5.74	6.66	7.57	8.54
										
	HAND	2 Hands	3 Hands	4 Hands	5 Hands	6 Hands	7 Hands	8 Hands	9 Hands	10 Hands
										
56	JT	1.85	2.65	3.41	4.14	4.95	5.78	6.66	7.57	8.47

Note: These results are NOT game specific, they are just showdown results and are applicable to FL/NL and PL too. But remember, they only take into account an opponent holding any random hand, and most opponents don't call with any random hand, so some of these hands can get lots weaker in showdowns with tighter opponents.

I'll give an example of a Hand Evaluator result:

 	HAND	1 Opp 50%	2 Opp 33%	3 Opp 25%
				
14	AK's	58.67	40	30
15	AQ's	54	35	24.67
16	AJ's	50	31.67	21.67
17	AT's	47.33	29.67	22.33

These results are in percentages but the problem is that especially against 3+ opponents the results can vary quite a bit, which is why I didn't even track results against 4+ opponents. These results are averages of 6 runs of the simulation against opponents who play about 6% of the hands dealt to them. Typically against 1 opponent the simulation results are the same every run, but against 3+ opponents the results vary largely each time through. I wish the software was a little better than this obviously. I am going to sim all of the hands one more time, but about 12-15 times through each, and using the OpenOffice version of Excel I will have it add up all of the results and give me the average, or perhaps the median result.

One important result is that I find there are many hands that can be played from the blinds profitably, when defending them against a raise. I re-raised with hands like A5s from the blinds last night and took down pots against players who raised with pocket pairs in early position. When you consider that you only have to call - for example - $1 to win $4 on the Big Blind, you can afford to decrease the quality of hands you defend with. $2 raise from opponent, call $1 and $1 is lost anyway, so you call $1 to win $4.

I've spent waaaay too many hours at this...

Licentia

[tbird2]

Holy wall of text Batman!!
I'm too lazy to read and digest all that, but if it works for you stick to it.
just remember when to fold, just because statistics say aces wins against 1 or 2 opponents doesn't mean you can call down every time no matter what and expect to show profit.

[The Professor]

Nice work Licentia - its good to see you are really thinking about your game and developing your strategy and glad to know it was our guide who started you along that road and stimulated you enough to go off and do your own testing and develop a starting hand chart that suits your game.

Thanks for sharing with us - it was an interesting read.