Why categorise
When you stare at AA-88, AKs-AJs, KQs, AKo-AQo, your brain tracks 13 tokens. When you stare at “premium and middle pairs + top suited aces + KQs + top offsuit aces”, you track five concepts — each with a clear structural meaning. Coaches, solvers, and training sites (GTO Wizard, Upswing, Run It Once) all describe ranges through the same vocabulary.
The buckets below tile the entire 169-hand grid. Click any chip to see it isolated on the matrix.
CategoryPremium pairs
Hands · Combos3 · 18
Share of all combos1.36%
The pairs that play face-up — almost always raising, almost never folding pre.
NotationAA-QQ
How the canonical ranges break down
Pick a percentage. The bars show how much of each category the canonical range covers — 4/4 means every hand in that category is included.
Premium pairs
3/3
18 combos · 22.0%
Middle pairs
4/5
24 combos · 29.3%
Small pairs
0/5
0 combos · 0.0%
Broadway suited aces
3/4
12 combos · 14.6%
Middle suited aces
0/4
0 combos · 0.0%
Wheel suited aces
0/4
0 combos · 0.0%
Suited Broadways
1/6
4 combos · 4.9%
Low suited kings
0/8
0 combos · 0.0%
Low suited queens
0/8
0 combos · 0.0%
Low suited jacks
0/8
0 combos · 0.0%
Suited connectors
0/8
0 combos · 0.0%
Suited one-gappers
0/7
0 combos · 0.0%
Other suited gappers
0/21
0 combos · 0.0%
Offsuit Broadway aces
2/4
24 combos · 29.3%
Offsuit Broadways
0/6
0 combos · 0.0%
Weak offsuit aces
0/8
0 combos · 0.0%
Other offsuit
0/60
0 combos · 0.0%