Counting Poker Hand Combinations

The Basic Counts

A Deck Has 52 Cards, So There Are 1326 Ways To Deal Two Of Them. A Pair Such As Queens Can Be Made From Any Two Of The Four Queens, Which Is 6 Ways. A Suited Hand Such As Ace King Suited Has One Combination Per Suit, 4 In All. An Offsuit Hand Has Four Choices Of Suit For Each Card Minus The Four Suited Ones, 12 In All, So Ace King Of Any Kind Is 16 Combinations.

These Numbers Are Why Charts Count Combinations, Not Hand Classes. Folding One Offsuit Hand Removes Three Times As Many Combinations From A Range As Folding One Suited Hand Of The Same Ranks.

Card Removal

Every Card You Can See, In Your Hand Or On The Board, Is A Card Your Opponent Cannot Hold. The Table Shows How Much A Single Visible Card Changes The Count.

If The Board Shows One Ace, Ace King Drops From 16 To 12 Combinations. If You Hold An Ace And A King Yourself, Your Opponent Can Hold Ace King Only 9 Ways. If The Board Shows One Queen, Your Opponent Has Only 3 Ways To Hold Pocket Queens, And Each Of Them Is A Set.

Putting Combos To Work

Counting Combos Turns A Vague Read Into A Number. Suppose An Opponent's River Bet Represents Either A Set Or A Missed Draw. Count The Sets That Are Still Possible After Card Removal, Count The Draws That Missed, And Compare. If The Draws Outnumber The Sets By More Than The Pot Odds Require, A Bluff Catcher Can Call.

The Same Counting Explains Blockers. Holding A Card That Appears In Your Opponent's Strongest Hands Removes Some Of Those Hands From Their Range, Which Makes A Bluff More Likely To Work And A Call More Likely To Be Good. The Effect Is Real But Modest, Usually A Few Combinations, So Use It To Break Close Decisions Rather Than To Justify Big Ones.

Practise On Hands You Have Played. Write Down The Range You Put An Opponent On At Each Street, Count The Combinations, And See How The Count Changes As The Board Runs Out. After A Few Dozen Hands The Common Counts Become Automatic.

Practise It On Smarter.Poker

The Answer Above Is Complete. When You Want To Drill It, These Are The Matching Training Tools.

• Play Combo Counting The Training Game For This Lesson.
• Open Jarvis Training Insights Jarvis Explains Your Training Decisions In Words.