Tamarisk Poker ClubTexas Hold’em← BackTamarisk Poker ClubTexas Hold’em← BackAbout one hand in five is worth playing. Most of the money a beginner loses is lost on the other four.
Everything else on this site has a right answer — what beats what, how many cards make your flush. This does not. What follows is a deliberately tight, deliberately simple range, chosen because it is easy to remember and hard to get into trouble with. Good players would argue with the edges of it, and they would be entitled to. Treat it as training wheels you will eventually outgrow.
If nobody has entered the pot yet, you have a simple choice: raise, or throw it away. Limping in — just calling the big blind — looks harmless and is the single most common beginner leak. It invites four people into the pot and gives you no way to win without a good hand.
Which group a hand is in tells you where you can play it from. See where you sit if those seat names are new.
The standard way to show this. Pairs run down the diagonal; hands above it are suited, hands below it are not. You do not need to read this — the four groups above are the same information in words.
Suited matters less than people think. Two hearts instead of a heart and a spade is worth about 2% more, not 20%. It is a tie-breaker, not a reason.
This is for when you are first in. If somebody has already raised, tighten right up: play the top group and little else.