We are continually being told to play tight poker, particularly when playing Texas Hold ‘em. This means recognizing good starter hands. The experts agree that in this game only 18 – 20% of all hole cards dealt have the potential to be a good starter hand, and they fill us with advice as to what good starter hands are. But what about the really bad hands – what is the worst possible poker hand?
There has not been a lot of discussion about the worst hands in poker – understandably, we want to focus on the positive and not the negative. Who knows what the power of suggestion is capable of and if we harp too much or too long on the worst hands, we may bring them into being if we believe in the LOA.
The worst hands also depend on the games being played, because as you know in Omaha Hi Lo a lo hand also gets a winning stake. But there is a big difference between a lo winning hand and the worst hand possible, so we should not mix issues, and stick to Texas Hold ‘em for the purpose of this exercise.
In low, moderate and high stakes games the worst hand can also be different, even if we are playing the same variation of poker. So, it is good to remember that when you play a poker low stakes game, some things do change, but when you play high stakes poker, everything changes!
A lot of players think that a 7 – 2 is the worst possible hand they could ever get, but most experts disagree. Admittedly this is a pretty awful hand and anyone who bets money on it is probably a fool to take it to the flop, but it is still not close to the worst possible hand, because you will probably never play it.
What could the terrible hand be?
It is the K – 9 more than likely because you would play it. It can get you into really big trouble too. K-9 creates bad, even horrible situations and many expert players have put this hand forward as the candidate for the “worst hand” award.
This hand allows poker players to become prone to making bad decisions because they will look at it as a starter hand and even go so far as to call and raise with it. At the end of the day even though this is a big gapper hand, most players will dabble with it.
Unpaired big cards are really awful because of the possible situations which can arise from holding onto them. Imagine the A – 6 hand to, this is lethal and sneaky; the player gets lulled into a sense of complacency because he has an Ace in hand but if you hit the Ace this can cause big trouble and the same applies to the 6.
In the past hands such as 8-7’s were given a bad rap, but they are not that hard to play in the bigger scheme of things they don’t actually play as badly as the big gappers.
