Preflop hand rankings: the 169 starting hands, ranked
Preflop Edge guide · figures from 169-hand equity data (thousands of simulations per hand, vs 1–8 random opponents)
In short: every Hold'em hand belongs to exactly one of 169 ranked starting-hand classes. Rank alone is a decent compass but a dangerous rule: a hand's value depends heavily on how many opponents you face. This guide explains why the ladder looks the way it does, shows the measured top 20, and links to a dedicated numbers page for every single hand.
Why there are 169 hands, not 1,326
There are 1,326 distinct two-card combinations in Texas Hold'em, but many are strategic twins: A♠K♠, A♥K♥, A♦K♦ and A♣K♣ behave identically preflop — same straight and flush potential, same equity. So every pair collapses into one class (AA down to 22 — 13 classes), every suited non-pair into one (78 classes), and every offsuit non-pair into one (78 classes). That gives 13 + 78 + 78 = 169 ranked classes — the standard ladder used in solvers and charts everywhere.
How to read the numbers on this site
Every figure here and on each hand page is an all-in preflop win-rate: the share of simulated all-in pots the hand wins. Two facts change how to read it.
First, every figure is relative to random opponents. "26.8% vs 4" means J-T suited won that share of simulated all-ins against four hands drawn at random. A real calling range is not random — opponents who put money in cold hold stronger hands than a random draw — so treat these numbers as a strength ordering, not exact table prices.
Second, the suited/offsuit split is the second axis. Stripping the flush potential from A-K costs about 1.7 points of win-rate vs one random hand (A-K suited 67.0%, A-K offsuit 65.3%), and the tax grows with crowd size (4.1 vs five). The full picture is in our suited vs offsuit guide.
The top 20, measured
The tables show win-rate vs one random opponent, vs four, and vs eight — the drop across those columns is where the insight is. Versus one random hand, raw card value dominates; versus a full table the number craters and the ordering shuffles.
Top 20 by win-rate vs one random opponent:
| Rank vs 1 | Rank vs 5 | Hand | WR vs 1 | WR vs 4 | WR vs 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | AA | 85.2% | 55.7% | 34.8% |
| 2 | 2 | KK | 82.4% | 49.6% | 29.3% |
| 3 | 3 | 79.9% | 44.0% | 24.7% | |
| 4 | 4 | JJ | 77.5% | 39.9% | 21.0% |
| 5 | 6 | TT | 75.0% | 35.9% | 18.2% |
| 6 | 12 | 99 | 72.1% | 31.8% | 16.6% |
| 7 | 20 | 88 | 69.2% | 29.8% | 15.2% |
| 8 | 5 | AKs | 67.0% | 34.4% | 21.2% |
| 9 | 7 | AQs | 66.2% | 32.7% | 20.3% |
| 10 | 33 | 77 | 66.2% | 26.8% | 14.2% |
| 11 | 9 | AJs | 65.4% | 30.9% | 18.4% |
| 12 | 10 | AKo | 65.3% | 31.9% | 18.8% |
| 13 | 14 | ATs | 64.6% | 29.8% | 16.8% |
| 14 | 13 | AQo | 64.4% | 29.1% | 15.8% |
| 15 | 17 | AJo | 63.6% | 27.3% | 14.8% |
| 16 | 8 | KQs | 63.4% | 31.7% | 19.4% |
| 17 | 42 | 66 | 63.3% | 23.8% | 14.0% |
| 18 | 22 | A9s | 62.8% | 26.3% | 15.9% |
| 19 | 26 | ATo | 62.7% | 26.3% | 13.7% |
| 20 | 11 | KJs | 62.6% | 29.4% | 18.7% |
Top 20 by win-rate vs five random opponents (note the reordering):
| Rank vs 1 | Rank vs 5 | Hand | WR vs 1 | WR vs 5 | WR vs 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | AA | 85.2% | 48.6% | 34.8% |
| 2 | 2 | KK | 82.4% | 42.3% | 29.3% |
| 3 | 3 | 79.9% | 35.9% | 24.7% | |
| 4 | 4 | JJ | 77.5% | 33.9% | 21.0% |
| 8 | 5 | AKs | 67.0% | 30.8% | 21.2% |
| 5 | 6 | TT | 75.0% | 29.8% | 18.2% |
| 9 | 7 | AQs | 66.2% | 28.7% | 20.3% |
| 16 | 8 | KQs | 63.4% | 27.3% | 19.4% |
| 11 | 9 | AJs | 65.4% | 27.2% | 18.4% |
| 12 | 10 | AKo | 65.3% | 26.7% | 18.8% |
| 20 | 11 | KJs | 62.6% | 26.6% | 18.7% |
| 6 | 12 | 99 | 72.1% | 26.0% | 16.6% |
| 14 | 13 | AQo | 64.4% | 25.6% | 15.8% |
| 13 | 14 | ATs | 64.6% | 25.1% | 16.8% |
| 27 | 15 | QJs | 60.3% | 25.1% | 17.2% |
| 22 | 16 | KTs | 61.8% | 24.3% | 17.0% |
| 15 | 17 | AJo | 63.6% | 23.9% | 14.8% |
| 45 | 18 | JTs | 57.5% | 23.7% | 16.9% |
| 34 | 19 | QTs | 59.5% | 23.6% | 16.1% |
| 7 | 20 | 88 | 69.2% | 23.3% | 15.2% |
Two reorderings worth noticing. Big offsuit cards (A-K, A-Q, K-Q, A-J offsuit) slide down the chart as the table fills, because "top pair, no draw" hands get dominated more often in a crowd. Suited connectors and small pairs fall the slowest.
Tiers that hold up under pressure
- The pair tier (AA down to 66). Every pocket pair down to sixes beats every non-pair class vs a single random opponent — an artifact of "random" being a weak crowd, since a real calling range would rather have A-K than 2-2 most of the time. The multiway collapse is the real lesson: J-J falls from 77.5% to 33.9% as the crowd grows, and 2-2 from 50.3% to 15.8%. See the J-J page and the pocket-pairs guide.
- Suited Broadway (A-K suited 67.0%, A-Q suited 66.2%, K-Q suited 63.4%, Q-J suited 60.3% vs one). Two big cards with a flush draw attached. These are the workhorse raise-first-in hands from any seat.
- Suited connectors and one-gappers (J-T suited 57.5%, T-9 suited 54.0%, 9-8 suited 50.8%, 5-4 suited 41.5% vs one). Modest on the chart, disproportionately powerful in practice: they make straights and flushes that opponents won't fold to.
- The suited-ace tier (A-2 suited up through A-5 suited). Wheel aces: a wheel straight draw, a backdoor nut-flush draw, and the ace high that wins when you never draw at all. A-5 suited sits at 59.9% vs one random hand; the full A-5 suited page tracks it through all eight crowd sizes.
- Offsuit garbage (7-2 offsuit 7.2% vs five random hands, 3-2 offsuit 8.6% — the actual bottom of the chart). Worth knowing mainly so you can profitably decline to play it. The 7-2 page is more fun than it sounds.
Three rules of thumb that survive contact with real games
- Rank is a preflop-only statement. Postflop it means little: T-9 suited and A-J offsuit rank 65 and 15 on the vs-1 chart, yet T-9 suited flops around straights and flushes far more often, and being dominated by a better Jack or Ten is exactly what its page warns about.
- Value degrades with crowd size. See how often A-A wins for the starkest example — the best Hold'em hand is only a modest favorite against seven. A jam that is fine against one random hand is a gift against five random hands.
- Chart rank is not action frequency. For most ranked classes the correct first-in action from a given seat is raise-or-fold, and rank alone won't tell you which. That's what the free cheat sheet is for, and what the range tools in every Study Pack drill.
Go deeper on any single hand
Each of the 169 classes has its own page with the full vs-1-through-vs-8 table — start with A-A, A-K suited, J-T suited or 7-2 offsuit, or work through the whole ladder in the hand index.