[neon]

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Hi Mason,

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My answer was that if someone was all-in, the jacks would be better, but if they each had chips left, which was the case here, the ace-queen suited was better.

Well, no one understood what I was talking about. No wonder the games are good.


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Uh, slow down on the condescension, Boss--you're almost certainly wrong. In limit, your answer is correct. In NL, the Jacks are definitely better in deep stacked situations, and probably in all situations where both players have substantial chips left.

Yours is a limit player's mistake: you are overvaluing the top pair-type hands that AQs can make; AQs will rarely be able to win a big pot, or stand up to much heat post-flop, while JJ will often be able to. I'll let others elaborate, but just realize that the set-flopping potential of JJ, and the frequency with which it'll be an overpair on the flop makes it much stronger than the top pair or combo draw AQs will sometimes flop.

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I completely agree. Here's an example from a hand I played in the MGM's 5-10 NL, $500 min, no cap cap game last night.

I raise AQo UTG to $40. I've been playing unusually TAG, for anyone at the table observant enought to notice. Player third to act calls. Whale who plays slightly better than abysmally raises to $250. Youngish dude who plays okay but calls way too much, especially preflop but also on earlier streets postflop as well calls in the SB. I fold, as does the limper. Flop comes Qxx, rainbow. SB checks, raiser bets $300, SB folds, whale shows JJ.

Now the problem here is, I had about $4K behind, and the whale had about $3K, and I have veeeeeeery little doubt that he would have put me to the test on all three streets.

So Mason, what flops are we looking for with AQ? Granted, mine was offsuit, and I was out of positiion, so if they had been suited and I had had position, things might have been different, but I'm not sure where you're coming from with this. So long as villain's reraising range isn't (transparently) too broad, I think playing AQ in a reraised pot sucks pretty hard pretty much always. Unless you and the reraiser are both super deep, I just think the hand sucks in situations like this.

But what the [censored] do I know.