Poker calculation help

hi guys, especially maths wizzs.

I'm trying to develop my own strategy, something I can call my own and stick with. so, a few questions.

How many different starting hands are there? like all poker hands, not just playable ones.

And how do I calculate how many different hands I would play if...lets say I only played pairs, two picture cards, or suited connectors.

If someone could give an example of how to calculate that kind of thing it would be great, as I’d love to be able to work that stuff out myself and work out an optimal % of hands played for a particular style of play.

Thanks everyone
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i think there are something like 1326 possible starting combos. go to the "beginner's digest" in this forum and open spoonitnow's thread which mentions the words "combinations" and "blockers" for more specific answers. also downloading a program called pokerstove would help. btw this game isn't as solvable as just figuring out what % of hands to play. nowhere near.

You are probably looking for something like this, but as the post above pointed out, there is a lot more you need too.

169 Starting hand combinations

Originally Posted by JR9477

169 Starting hands

fyp,

combos = 52 *51 / 2 = 1326

169 different combo's of AA,AKs,AKo,AQs...23s,23o,22.

I don't think it's very useful to think of 169 hands because you can't really do anything with that.
1326 it is.

If you want to know what percentage of that all of the neato picture card hands are you just add and divide.

AK KQ QJ
AQ KJ
AJ

that's 6*16 = 96

and JJ-AA is 4*6 = 24

96+24 = 120

120/1326 = 0.09 or 9% of all hands

That's pretty much all you need to know about poker. Learn to do EV calculations and you're ahead of 98% of the poker population.

gl

If you aren't entirely clear why ther are 16 combos of unpaired, 6 of paired and 4 of all suited hands, get a pen and paper and write them out.

btw: good first question to ask. Welcome to the forums.

Somebody punch me if I'm wrong...

The reason we use 169 starting hands is that if we have say AKo, it doesn't matter what suits they are because there are no other cards to compare them to preflop. So AdKs has the same value preflop as AcKh. It isn't until we see the flop that suits become important.

If someone has a 20% range, he doesn't have 169*0.2 = 33 hands because he'll have something like 44+, all broadways, A7s+, 45s+, that's... 44 hands!
It just doesn't work. You cannot count a pair the same way you count any other combination because you are 2.6 times more likely to get an unpaired hand. Forget about differentiating between suited/offsuit hands.

You might go: Ok, but I'm not that anal... fine.
But then you go to the flop and the flop comes JJ3. Now you either go zomg! This mutha has liak 9/33*100 % trips - that's redonculous! 27%!
But fear not, he doesn't. Thanks to blockers he only has 15%.

It's a crutch that becomes a nuisance really fast. The only thing it's good for is to go DURRR HURRR I RAISE SEFEN HANDS FROM UTG CUZ RENTON TOLD ME SO.

Which is alright, but it will only take you so far.

i honestly believe that understanding ranges in terms of the actual possible combinations of them having that hand (as spoon describes in his post in the digest, and oskar is pointing out in this thread), is the best way to start learning about ranges. even if it is hard to understand at first, i think it's best for long-term development.

I think Oskar has shown why 1326 is better than 169 clearly. It convinced me anyhow - thanks.