Almost all poker players, even those who have just started playing have heard of David Sklansky and his tour de force writing on the subject of poker. Given Sklansky’s propensity to devour the math and numbers of poker (and many gambling/casino games as well), it’s no surprise that he was the first to come up with a ranking of (hole card) hands in hold’em poker and assign them numerical strength based on their long term performance.



This numerical association as players know, was further simplified into groups where for example, strong hands like AA and KK were put into Group 1 where easily identifiable as the most powerful starting hands in holdem. These 9 groups in total, give quick reference to playing a hand or not, betting or not, calling or not, or even letting your tournament ride on your given hole card strength. The groups are handy training for newcomers to be sure, but whether to play a certain hand really does depend o many factors, not just the group ranking.









We should really be talking about another group of hands when it comes to tournaments, and that group of hands may be a cluster, so to speak, of hands that you played while building your image at the table, playing good position moves, or taking advantage of others’ errors.



This group of hands may have included, K9os, 55, ATs, even 23os which may not have pure strength, but more relative strength to the given situation.



A nice group of hands can really come out of nowhere. This is why when someone emails me with a hand history and they ask "What would you do Marty?" It's the same old answer all the time... It depends of course. "It depends" is actually the best answer every time because new players have to get beaten in to them that there are usually more factors at issue than they realize.



Now, yes some of these hands noted above like the32os were high risk, but if you know what you are doing, sometimes your hole cards just don’t matter too much. You could be making a nice defensive bet there, or you "training" this guy to give you his stack and ultimately fortune may smile on you when you have him dominated, and he willingly gives you his stack. His poker calculator may be telling him that you are a gambler, when really, it's the opposite profile more connected to you.



Therefore a certain group of hands can create opportunity in a poker tournament, and together can tell a nice story here with which you always plan to have, a very gratifying ending.

By: Marty Smith

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Marty Smith has video reviews of all the online poker calculators so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you. He also has a poker tournament strategy video series that is free poker training just for signing up.