The Story Behind The Worst Poker Hands

June 16th, 2010

The worst starting hand in poker – we all have a nemesis that we seem to suck out on more than on any other starting hand. If you were to ask a player which he thought the worst poker hand was, he’d probably tell you it was the 7,2o though. Mathematically speaking, the 7,2o is indeed the king of the worst poker hands. If it catches a pair, it’s more than likely beat. If it makes a straight or a flush somehow, it’s likely to end up with a smaller one than an opponent. There’s no doubt about it, the 7,2o sucks big time. That’s exactly what strikes it OFF the list of potentially worst poker hands.

You always know what you have to do with your 7,2o: you fold it. As such, you tend not to lose any money on it, unless you’re in one of the blinds and you’re forced to give your compulsory bet up on it. Every now and then, when in the blinds and when no one is willing to up the stakes, you get a free ride with your beer-hand and hit a monster like trips or a two pair. Then you can proceed to cash in on it. At the end of the day, if you run a serious statistical observation on your 7,2o, you may realize you’re in the black on the hand in the long run – it certainly wouldn’t be surprising.

The truly worst hand is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It shapes up as a relatively decent starting hand, but it turns right around and bites you in the rear end as soon as the flop is dealt. Take the J,J for instance. Sure, it’s a nice hand, one that will probably end up winning you loads of pots, but you are guaranteed to get the cold sweats whenever a Q,K or A hits the board after you commit a nice stack of dough on it. Another excellent worst hand candidate would be the K,Q. Some people hate the J,T and ask Mike Matusow what he thinks of the K,9 (woof).
All these hands are excellent possible worst starting hands, but every player has his own poison, which means that the worst possible starting hand for you is the one that you find the most difficult to play.

Finding out what your nemesis is and staying out of its way is imperative as far as your overall strategy is concerned. How do you know which hand taxes your stack the hardest? Look for unpaired high cards, one or even two gappers like T,K, or J,K. The problem with a hand like K,10 is that it makes your post flop decisions extremely difficult. Such hands do give you something, but that something may not be up to the task ahead. If you hit a pair of Ks on your K,T, you’re in trouble. Your hand may well be the best hand at the table, but it may just as easily be beaten, even by another K. Your 10 may have you in kicker-trouble, and there are few things worse than losing on account of a smaller kicker. Your K,T will also be behind any Ace-rag if the board brings nothing but bricks.

Hands like 8,7o or 4,6s are much less sneakier. They’re a lot easier to play than the above named ones, because they tend to have you faced with simple decisions after the flop. You either hit or you miss. If you miss, you muck: simple as that.
Any starting hand that you play without a rakeback deal backing you up is a bad one though. You need to get rakeback, or you have to secure some sort of a poker prop deal to make the most of the time you spend playing online. Check out rakemeback.com for the best rakeback and poker prop deals, or take a look at a poker forum where people usually openly discuss the value of such deals.

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