Hole cards that include the Ace and face cards form the best starting hands because poker rules determine that individual cards are ranked from high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2. Suited connectors are two cards that are connected closely through rank and are of the same suit, such as suited Ace-King and suited King-Queen. A suited hand refers to two hole cards of the same suit while cards that have different suits are known as ‘offsuit.’ This distinction is significant because suited starting hands have a greater potential to form strong poker hands, such as royal flush and straight flush, then offsuit hands. The strongest starting hands are generally suited. These hole cards, otherwise known as the starting hand, are critical in determining the likelihood of a player winning the pot and how strong of a hand they can create. At the beginning of a game of poker, each player is dealt two cards called hole cards.
