Do you know your starting hands?

[piggity]

Consider the game of No-Fold'em-Hold'em, which is played just like Texas Hold'em, except that there are no betting rounds. Instead, every player posts a big blind, and every hand makes it to the river for free thereafter.

In a 10-handed game of No-Fold'em-Hold'em, what do you think are the top ten best starting hands (in order)?

Please try to answer without any programmatic aid!

[diebitter]

AA, KK, AKs, AK, QQ, AQs, KQs, AJs, ATs, JJ,KJs

(in loose games where there's a few 'Ace Wonders' playing)

[piggity]

[ QUOTE ]
AA, KK, AKs, AK, QQ, AQs, KQs, AJs, ATs, JJ,KJs

(in loose games where there's a few 'Ace Wonders' playing)

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple of questions:

1. By "Ace Wonders" do you mean people who play any ace?
2. Does it matter what kind of players are in the game?

[wallofchips]

I voted "other," but I wouldn't be suprised if the answer is 3 (5 is close, but there's no way A10s is better than 1010). I wrote down a list before I even looked at the options. It started AA, KK, QQ, AKs, JJ, AQs. I'm pretty sure this is right. After that I think it should be AKo, AQo, 1010, KQs. I'm not sure about the KQs, it should probably be AJs. I think KQs is a better hand against a big field. That might just be because I like playing that hand better, though.

[piggity]

Any of the other people who picked "Other" have a guess?

[piggity]

Shameless bump to try to get some more responses before posting the answer.

[x vikram]

I find this really interesting, when you post the answers could u say why?

I guessed that pairs (1) were the fav. because im thinking that its pairs vs x where x is any hand. and for each answer it would be the top 10 hands against X so i figure that If each hand possibly played against the top 10 hands 100 times pairs would win more often that any other hand.

I may be wrong i have no clue.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
AA, KK, AKs, AK, QQ, AQs, KQs, AJs, ATs, JJ,KJs

(in loose games where there's a few 'Ace Wonders' playing)

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple of questions:

1. By "Ace Wonders" do you mean people who play any ace?
2. Does it matter what kind of players are in the game?

[/ QUOTE ]
1. Yep - ace with absolutely anything
2. Sorry, any loose games I play on party seem to have 1 or 2 Ace Wonders lately, and keep tough playing KK and QQ only to get an Ace on the turn or river, and know these donks will beat me (and they do - I lay em down, and they always go to the river and each turns up an ace+rubbish, more often than not). Obviously I'm posting a very short-term, personal list, and I should know better. But it's soooo annoying

[Reef]

JTs has to be on any of these lists

[piggity]

The answer is #5. I was pretty surprised when I found this out, but I'm even more surprised that 23% of responders actually got the answer right. I was expecting a much lower percentage.

Among the unexpected (at least for me) characteristics: AKs is better than JJ, KQs is better than AJs, and ATs is better than TT.

Here's a description of the other options I'd listed:

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, 66, 55:
Just the first ten pairs. As it turns out, med/small pairs are indeed pretty strong in this game, but not quite this strong. (11%)

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, TT, AQs, AJs, KQs, AKo:
The trusty S&M groups 1&2. (18%)

AA, KK, QQ, AKs, JJ, AQs, AJs, TT, KQs, AKo:
This is a slight re-organization of the S&M rankings, moving the big suited cards upward. Indeed, something like this would have been my initial guess, and ended up being the most popular answer. (34%)

AA , KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, AKs, 77, AQs:
This is the answer for heads-up NFEHE. (8%)

AA, KK, QQ, AKs, JJ, AQs, KQs, AJs, KJs, ATs:
This is the answer for 10-handed NFEHE. (23%)