Hand ranking system in poker software

I was curious what all hand grouping schemes people used to rank and sort their hole cards and decide what to play. Please pick whichever of the following items you find the most relevant or use the most personally. I'm interested primarily in NL Holdem tournament and ring play.

I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the problems this debate is going to face is that not enough people will know about modified sklansky groupings, let alone the difference from the original. .

There are other systems too, but they all suck. Then there is EV.... well, that all depends on who is playing the cards and what is the action before you and what are the stack sizes behind. Not really that much help.

I get the suspicion this poll is driven towards including the modified sklansky groups in TI as a user setting option. If that is the case, I would have thought that a better poll would be: "Would you like TI to allow modified sklansky groups to be set as a user defined option?".

I have never ever used a hand ranking system ever in NL games. Yes I guess that I used Sun's Core set for FLNE, but that was for learning purposes. In my own game, when learning NL SNG MTT etc, I never referred to any hand ranking systems. I think they are great to start off with for beginners, but after more and more and more experience, I find that I know what hands I can play EV+ from every position.

I probably haven't proved it through data samples and what not, but it is through experience that I know what hand is best played from where. It should be "other" because it is everything and nothing and I am always shifting and actually never thinking about hand grouping systems. I think about my opponent's range and that is the only thing that affects my range.

IMO hand groupings are important when you learn to game but once that is accomplished and you have a fair bit of experience they become completely unimportant.

What I meant by a modified Sklansky Grouping is that since Sklansky is far and away the most popular and most published hand grouping scheme but at the same time has limited scope as to the situations it was meant to cover and is applicable in, I have seen dozens of altered or rearranged Sklansky hand groupings (for example the one done by CMU, see link below, or any of the variations made from it) I figured that selection would cover any of the people that use a grouping system that closely resembles but is not the sklansky groupings.

Also I know that with time and experience any player will start to rely less and less on a formalized grouping system (whether that comes putting greater weight on intuition and other factors and/or unconsciously memorizing the groupings you started with), but I am one that thanks having a good core set similar to what Sun referenced is a good resource was curious what the rest of you thought and what's systems you started with and were currently bringing to bear in your table play. Thanks again for all the information and responses.

I chose other, mostly I use a combination of all the above. I originally used a printed chart for Sklansky, Modified Sklansky and MIT plus another chart I forget which now. Then I used "my own" that was based on opponent VP and his range as to whether I call/raise/fold. Then I switched to Tournament Indicator groupings.

Now, it's mostly ingrained my range and it changes based on the situation at hand. I may have A-rag suited oop middle and either raise/call/fold dependent on all the other factors in that given situation. There is always a base root to start with, solid abc. Top 10 hands early rounds, then adjust from there.

As far as TI is concerned, I say KISS it. Go with the Sklansky Groups. TI is a great tool for beginners who are interested in playing better than monkeys and donks. So keep it simple. I don't, at this point, want to complicate my learning curve with other groupings.

When I use TI (which is all the time now Very Happy ) I only glance at the EV, I take note of the Hand Group, and I seriously consider the Pot Odds. Of course it goes without saying that the Player Profiling and MZone are the major draws of TI. But I'll say it anyway. Seriously though, this is a great tool for beginners and should be kept that way as much as possible. Or at least the basics should be the most visible aspects. Maybe add the ability for the user to modify the rankings or even select from a table of presets in preferences.