Ax-suited a loser in loose limit games?

[WMB]

good analysis. the bottom line is that you must play well post flop to make ace little suited profitable for you. you need to know when an ace flops whether your hand is good or not. you need to be able to steal pots when necessary. you need to be able to get free cards when necessary, etc.

[ChuckyB]

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good analysis. the bottom line is that you must play well post flop to make ace little suited profitable for you. you need to know when an ace flops whether your hand is good or not. you need to be able to steal pots when necessary. you need to be able to get free cards when necessary, etc.

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...need to be able to raise on the come...need to flop trips, flop two pair...need to get 6 people to the flop for a raise...need to have loose callers who are clearly beaten around...need to turn the flush when some donk turned the straight or a set.

I think your example gives way too much credit to the people I play B&M 3/6 & 4/8 with. You make a good point though about Axs lack of profitability in tighter than super-loose games.

[Frond]

Axs hands in limit can be great hands to play IMO. I don't go crazy with hand like A7s etc in EPs, but they obv have great value if you are good at Post flop play.

[CardSharkGames]

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Good analysis as far as it goes. Thanks for posting it.

I've attempted a similar analysis a couple of times and came to similar, but slightly more positive conclusions.


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My assumptions were actually overly optimistic, IMO. For example, I assumed flopping a flush draw 120 times in 1000 while in <u>Odds And Probabilities</u>, Hilger says it's only 110 times. I also think that a flopped pair of Aces are going to hold up a lot less often then I assumed (at least in my game they don't hold up).

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My actual experience shows that I've made money playing A9s-A2s in limit games from 30/60 to 1/2. It's very close though.

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I always felt that I was winning long-term with Ax-suited, but without very complete records, feelings can be misleading. That's why I did the analysis.

Some people made comments here about how profitable Ax-suited should be if played correctly, but couldn't provide any specific suggestions in how they should be played better than outlined in the original post, nor did they point out errors in the analysis.

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In positions 7 and 6 these hands are clear losers because you're more likely to get pumped by someone with a better ace in which case you are mostly dominated. These are position sensitive hands more so than many others.

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In <u>Small Stakes Hold'em</u>, Sklansky recommends playing Ax-suited in ALL positions, which is another reason I did the analysis.

[GiantBuddha]

In a loose passive limit game, I'll play every suited ace I'm dealt (not for a raise cold or anything, though). I'll also raise the limpers with it if I'm in position.

But the real value of Axs comes from being able to read the board and read hands. You have to know when your aces will be good. And be able to lay down top pair no kicker when it's not good. You also have to know when to semibluff. Don't just pump the pot every time you have a draw, but know when to pump the pot for value, and when to push people around.

Small pocket pairs play themselves in loose games. Axs does not. They both rely heavily on implied odds, on facing opponents that go too far with their hands. But they don't play the same way.

Loose aggressive games, btw, Axs is much harder to get value from. Small pocket pairs are the [censored] there, though.

[PorkchopDJG]

I agree that in loose/passive games you have to open up your starting hand requirements and play more hands like this preflop. Now I'm not usually advocating playing these from early position or even opening with these (unless you are almost 100% sure it won't be raised after you) but if even one player limps you should be limping with hands like A3s, 78s, Q,Ts and low pocket pairs for several reasons.
1) People behind you are passive and will rarely raise unless they have a huge hand
2) When you are the second limper you encourage others to limp and you will have a multiway pot with quite a bit in there.
3) In these types of games big hands(AA,KK,AK) don't hold up as much because it's likely that someone else in the multiway pot will hit their two pair, trips, flush so you can't just wait to play these hands.
4) If you do hit big you will win a big pot when you bet and are called down by 2 or 3 opponents.

Now if the table changes and gets more aggressive you should definitely change and dump more of these hands. It may be 2 or 3 bet behind you and you don't want to be in a three way pot with A3s where you have to hit huge to win.

[Voltaire]

I took a closer look at my stats for A9s-A2s. (BTW, get PokerTracker and you won't have to guess at your results.) There is an apparent anomaly in that the worst performing hands are A9s, A8s and A7s losing respectively 0.09, 0.17 and 0.09 BB per hand. The best performing hand is A5s at +0.12. A5s-A2s outperform A9s-A6s. Overall A9s-A2s is a wash.

However, if I just take the hands that were not blinds, A9s-A2s is a clear winner at +0.03 BB per hand. (n = 5,345 or about 668 each hand. Distribution theory would yield 5,400 hands or 675 each from a sampling of 223,914 hands played.)

Of course it may be that I play A5s-A2s better than I play A9s-A6s. And it may also be that the results will smooth out as my database grows. Incidentally, A9s-A2s VP$IP = 74.50. Better results would probably come from a smaller VP$IP! I play a lot looser than your average winning player. But that's another story.

Part of the anomaly probably results from playing multiple tables. If I only played one table at a time A9s would probably be the best hand, not to mention I would probably have better results!

My conclusion is the same as before: A9s-A2s are winners if you take into consideration what the other posters have said, namely that you have to play them well. A good point made (by mvdgaag) is that playing marginal hands makes you look looser and gets you more action on your solid hands. Clearly in any game in which you sometimes get free cards (that are really free), most marginal hands are winners. Alas I see a free card that's really free about once every 50 hands or so, if that.

I don't have Sklansky's book on small stakes limit hold'em in front of me. I lent it to my son-in-law. :-( But remember Axs is a Group 5 hand for Sklansky. The "loose" games that he would recommend playing Axs in upfront would have to be very loose with lots of yummie free cards.

[bernie]

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Some people made comments here about how profitable Ax-suited should be if played correctly, but couldn't provide any specific suggestions in how they should be played better than outlined in the original post

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Many times people don't dump the hand when they should. That's a big one. I didn't see anything about how much you save when you actually dump TPnK instead of going to showdown. Sometimes a simple raise on a flop can save you 2 bets on later streets.

Nor do they extract max value when they should. Whether by playing draws wrong, or flopped monsters wrong.

For better examples, look for hand posts that involve Axs.

b

[creedofhubris]

A5s-A2s make the wheel and also make unlikely trips; no shocker that they've got more value than A6s-A9s.

[Noo Yawk]

The value of loose limit games is in the size of the pot compared to the size of the bet, along with bad players that are willing to pay you off, but never charge you when they hit. Ax-suited is a perfect example of a hand that can take down big pots when you catch, and can be easy to get away from early. It also makes the type of hands that can hold up to a field of players.

Your analysis assumes that your Ace is beaten by a better kicker too often, and not considering that people will pay off enough with middle or bottom pair, as is very commom in the games you describe. It also assumes a smaller pot than a normal loose game.

You should rethink this and reread small stakes hold em.