What's your favorite Texas Hold'em hand? A-A obviously, but what about among unpaired hands? Do you favor Q-T -- the Varkonyi? Doyle Brunson's famous T-2? Does your taste run to suited connectors? Do you have a special fondness for the straight potential of a T-J? Whatever your sentimental choices in Texas Hold'em hands may be...
stop that nonsense now! There's no place in Texas Hold'em for sentiment, and no sensible discourse on starting requirements can go forward until sentiment is left behind.
Yes, yes, yes, I know, know, know that you once called with 7d-5d and flopped a straight flush. That doesn't make it a winning hand. That just means you got lucky once, and if you let the memory of that past luck dominate your thinking, you're doomed. Likewise, any time you play a hand on a hunch, or you're feeling bored, or because impatience got the best of you, you're toast. Just toast.
So here's the way to think about starting requirements: not just whether to play a certain hand, but why you feel the need.
Take your big aces, A-K, A-Q, A-J. You've probably heard that the deeper into position you get, the lower your starting requirements with aces can go. That's true as far as it goes-if you're holding A-J on the button, there's not likely to be a better ace lurking behind you in the blinds. But just because you can play a hand doesn't mean you should play a hand. Suppose you're in late position with that A-J and three notoriously - I mean notoriously - tight players have entered the pot before you. Do you think that your A-J is the best hand now? Not bloody likely.
Yet you might still trick yourself or talk yourself into playing. Why? Because you're impatient or bored, or you believe "jacks are coming," or because you once won a big pot with that very exact hand.
Can you say balderdash? I think you can.
Good, now that we've got that sentimental claptrap out of the way, we can go on to a quick and dirty guide to Texas Hold'em starting strategies for various unpaired ace hands. As always, these are guidelines, not straitjackets, but if you didn't veer too far from this plan, you wouldn't go too far wrong.
GOOD ACES. Good aces are position dependent. An A-T is not a good ace in early position. You probably need to hit the flop twice (with two aces, two tens, or an ace and a ten) to feel confident, and you just can't count on that. The same A-T may be considered a good ace in late position. Thus, give yourself a sliding scale. A-K is always a good ace, A-Q likes a little position, A-J likes a little more position and so on. A-T is a bad "good ace." I wouldn't get all that worked up about it.
Don't get all drippy about suited big aces, either, because they're not much stronger than unsuited big aces. In general they add about 3% of value. 3%! That's less than I tip! And yet you'll encounter players who consider big suited aces to be magically endowed. Don't fall into that trap. Here's a useful rule of thumb:
If you wouldn't play an unsuited ace in a certain situation, don't play a suited one either.
MEDIOCRE ACES. I call them mediocre aces on purpose because I want you to think of these cards (A-9, A-8, A-7) with abiding disdain. They're not good hands, and you shouldn't treat them as such, even if everyone else at the poker table has other ideas. In fact, the more excited your foes are about aces, the less enthusiastic you should get about your middling ones. If everyone plays any ace (in a game that's said to be below the anyace line) then there's no way someone makes a sensible laydown with an out-of-position A-T or A-J. Your promiscuously played A-9 or A-8 will end up being dominated and crushed.
Sure, you'll hold dominance over the nitwits playing baby aces, but you'll only be able to exploit that dominance if you know your opponents very well and can put them on worse aces than your own. And look at the bind that gets you into! If the flop comes A-big-big, you're heading for a split pot situation, but if it comes A-little-little, you could be staring down the barrel of a flopped two-pair.
Again I would repeat: The hand you don't play is the hand you can't lose. With your mediocre aces, you should either be staying out of trouble or raising with intent to clear the field and capture the blinds either before or after the flop. At this point, you're playing the naked strength of your ace. You're looking either for folds all around or for calls from hands like K-J or 7-8, followed by a ragged flop you can bet. But that's running a bluff, not betting a strong ace.
BAD ACES. Like any other hand containing a little card, bad aces are contaminated by little poison. I can see no rational reason for playing A-6, A-5, A-4, A-3 or A-2, even suited, except in unraised blinds. Especially in the aforementioned anyace games (the kind you're likely to encounter at the low limits you now play) any little ace you play is likely to be dominated and crushed by the slightly less cheesy aces your opponents opt to play. They can't stay out of trouble. Can you?
Talking points:
- Good aces are position-dependent. The later the ace, the better it is.
- Mediocre aces are trouble hands. Only play them if you're in late position with excellent reads.
- Bad aces are bad hands. For your profit and your peace of mind, learn to muck bad aces.
You can tell by now where my orthodoxy lies: I'd much rather fold a potential winner than play a potential loser. Are you prepared to tell me I'm wrong?
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