[El Diablo]

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Hi Mark:

In my limited no limit experience, it doesn't work this way. What will happen is that if no ace or queen (or other great hand) comes, the ace-queen will fold to the jacks bet.

If an ace comes, or a queen with no king, the player with the ace-queen will call the bet and then there will frequently be no bet on fourth street. If there is another bet on fourth street, then it becomes very tough as to what the ace-queen will do -- I'm talking about typical players, not what an expert would do.

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OK, Mason, I am going to take a stab at what I think you might be getting at.

A or Q flops x% of the time. Pot size = p. [In checking this post, I realize that p includes blinds too, and I'm sure there are other errors of sloppiness in what I write below, but all my general thoughts still hold, so I'm not going to bother correcting this stuff]

You postulate that you will be playing bad, straightforward players who will x% of the time w/ AQ gain (.5p + .75p)(x%). [Because they check-call the flop and that is it for the betting]

(1-x)% of the time they will check-fold and lose (1-x%)(.5p).

Not surprisingly, Mason, your description of how the hand will be played reminds me of how limit players play NL - typically far worse than even relatively inexperienced low-limit NL players.

It's not quite that easy, though.

Even against straightforward bad players who play as you stated, this does not consider a few scenarios.

The AQ player, if he check-calls and checks as you suggest he will, will always give the Jacks two shots to hit his Jack.

Sometimes the flop will contain an A or Q AND a Jack, and AQ will call.

Sometimes the flop will have a flush draw and AQ will check-call.

There are multiple scenarios besides "A or Q on flop, no J" where AQ will put money in.

Also, sometimes the flop will be KQ and AQ will fold to the continuation bet.

Even worse, it is much more common that AQ will get stacked by JJ than the reverse.

As AQs starts facing better and better players holding the Jacks, the chances of getting stacked increase as well as the chances of getting blown off the better hand.

Given these considerations (and numerous others I didn't list), it seems very hard for me to come up with reasons for preferring AQs given the situation you described.