Top 40 Hands

I bring this up because I noticed an appendix in the back of Moneymaker's biography where he lists them according to "playability" as defined by "your chances of playing these two cards into a winning five card poker hand".

I'm not sure if he ran them through Pokerstove or something (as getting all in preflop), but I would define "playability" differently than he would, as you will NOT get to see all five community cards a lot of the time.

I think everyone can agree on the top four (at least):
1. AA
2. KK
3. QQ
4. AKs

However, I disagreed with a lot of them after this.

Before I list his (or mine), anyone care to give their next ten IN ORDER ?

Let's make the criteria "playability early in a large freeroll"; i.e., you will probably need to shove or call a shove, with some exceptions.

eh kinda depends. im a fan of small suited cards with multiple all inners in front of me. less likely to open shove with that, though.

JJ
TT
AQs
AJs
KQs
AK

Sklansky has the above as the remaining in the top 2 teir of hands that you have not mentioned - Limit holdem.

5) JJ
6) AQs
7) AKo
8) AJs
9) TT
10) KQs

This is situational, AG. But, within the narrow scenario you specify, the made hands (ie.pocket pairs) assume greater importance. So (next ten):-

JJ
TT
AKo
99
88
AQs
AQo
77
AJs
AJo

If we're defining hands in terms of playability in a large freeroll, well, I'd value 33 over AK. In a freeroll, players are generally loose-passive, so...

- Many early pots will be limped, and limping in EP will likely trigger a series of limps.

- Any raise you make will likely be called in multiple spots.

Hence 33 is far more playable than AK, because 33 plays better in cheap, multiway pots.

Whereas if we're forced allin with a hand, I'd rather have AK against say a 15BB shover's range than 33 obviously, because the former is only dominated by AA/KK and thus fares better against the shover's range.

Really, this question is entirely situational, and my answer would be subject to a large degree of change depending on the exact circumstances presented to me.

Here is the continuation of Moneymaker's list, which prompted the op:

5. JJ
6. AQs
7. AKo
8. TT
9. KQs
10. AJs
11. ATs
12. 99
13. AQo
14. KJs
15. KQo
16. 88

As you can see he gives a tremendous amount of value to being suited, to the point of putting AQs over AKo.

As I noted, the criteria is "playability: chances of making these two cards into a winning five card poker hand", which I take to presume seeing the river.

Points about hands being situational are obviously valid (good example by DM), but I thought the list might provoke some interesting discussion.

No pair lower than 77 (#39) makes his list.

Sklansky has a hand ranking that you can find if you google it. It's broken down into tiers and is also broken down on playability based on position. All this list is is that ranking listed in a different way.

After this hand ranking came out, some smart fellow ran some astronomical number of simulations on the computer to come up with the statistically correct ranking and this list was basically identical to the one the computer came up with.

When I first started playing online poker I used to keep the sklansky ranking list open in one window so I could reference it.

I am so sad that my personal fave, QJ suited or not did not make the list.

marginal is not the name of the game of survival mode in mtt's. marginal m situations are not prolonged by marginal poker hands.

Since my debacle last weekend, I have been on a bad card streak of monumentaly biblical proportions, At this point QJ would be like gold!

I feel your pain dj, Im in the same situation and it SUCKS. Not sure if its bad luck or me. Tonight I'm trying again after that I think I need a break.

...so, why do people think moneymaker is a donk again?

if this is supposed to be an ordered list that's pretty funny.

Actually DM, Sklansky's hand rankings put AQs, AJs and KQs before AKo. I'm not saying that I agree, but that's how they are listed.

AKo is the weakest group 2 hand in his ranking. The fact that he really raises the value of suited hands is also evident when he considers AKs a group 1 hand, with more value than TT.

There are other controversial hand ratings in Sklansky's list.

If you look at group 3, JTs comes before QTs, KJs and ATs. Reason for that, obviously, is that JT has more straight combinations than the 3 hands listed after. But I'm not sure I'd be happy to have JTs if my opponent has QTs.

In general, the criteria in these rankings is "playability", as mentioned by AG. When you go through Sklansky's book often he will talk about hands like JTs, saying they are great to play in multiway pots because of the many ways you can win and the implied odds you are getting. The same is not said about ATs. While we all can easily agree to this part, the list per se does at times leave me perplex, as just happened to you.