Well the ammount of poly's that would start the basic shape of a hand ain't that big. It's only when people start to use more Loops arround the fingers and such that the number of poly start to increase. since i'm still at a hotel and not at home till tomorrow / the day after (will be gone after 2/1 day(s) again for a day and after thaat again 1 day at home then ill be gone for 1 day and then it would be the last day of my vacation But) here is a simple example i just made based on the question (sorry can't do simpler then this BTW if you go look for a UT99 model you'll see that there like only a couple of planes/triangles...):
i forgot to add when you need to bind/delete/add a loop and such but it might show you some sight of how easy you can start out.