"72o is the worst Hold'em hand" - How?

[N88DH8LP]

What hands does it dominate?

[flowerizzle]

72o is the worst multiway for its total weakness in making strong hands. straights are only possible with 1 card straights,flushes only with 4 flush board and even trips or 2 pair can easily be beaten.

32o is the worst haedsup hand since u got NO high card potential and pairs are worthless most of the time too.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Link shows for 10-ways, dealing out random cards and going to the river with all hands, at the bottom is also links for less players:

Hand ranking

However, it is of course situational, I think i.e. raising 72o UTG in a 10-player game is a smaller mistake than raising A2o.

[Zetack]

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It is the worst hand unless it is precisely against hands it dominates.

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And even then it sucks unless playing heads up.

Here the odds with a typical range of hands you might be up against and with 7-2 in there dominating 2-3.

Note that 7-2 offsuit wins signicantly less than 2-3 offsuit here even though it has 2-3 offsuit dominated.

Of course the below is flawed, because it shows the likelihood of winning only if all hands make it to the showdown, but its useful for illustrative purposes.

And to OP. See, below, this is why 7-2 offsuit is considered the worse hand. 7 High is good more often than 3 high very rarely, they both have the same chances of making a big hand like two pair, trips, or a boat, but the 23 makes more straights and so is marginally better.


cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ks Ac 140254 21.31 512338 77.86 5416 0.82 0.217
Kh Qh 124935 18.99 527657 80.19 5416 0.82 0.194
Td 9d 157245 23.90 500069 76.00 694 0.11 0.239
8c 8h 127912 19.44 529402 80.46 694 0.11 0.195
7s 2d 43133 <font color="blue">6.56 </font> 608954 92.55 5921 0.90 0.070
2c 3h 53886 <font color="blue"> 8.19 </font> 598201 90.91 5921 0.90 0.086

Ok, note however, if you take the pocket pair out of the lineup entirely that 23 off still beats 7-2 off, but if you replace the 8-8 with 5-5, that then 7-2 has a very slight edge over 7-2 (as you might expect with the straight possibilities really killed and the 7-2 with the chance to win by pairing his 7) but not enough to tip the hand better than 2-3 overall.

--Zetack

[Zele]

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you shouldn't be losing money w/ any hand

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fyp

[g-p]

its abuot multiway....72o is worst multiway hand, 32o is worst headsup hand

[mcvalenc]

blind (and drunken) post, hopefully I won't be repetitive...

if I have a hand that is pitted against 9 other random hands, all which reach showdown, I have the least likely chance of winning the showdown if I have 72o compared to any other hole card combination. with so many players, straights, flushes or full houses win hands more often than not so having a hand with big hand potential makes a significant difference (72o has no big hand potential except a relatively unlikely 3 card full house).

the confusion lies in when I have a hand pitted against ONE random hand... in that specific spot it's obvious 32o is the worst hand, since heads up, EVERY hand dominates 32o in some fashion, even the lowly 72o.

Ultimately, the worst starting hand possible depends on how many opponents you have preflop.

[Zetack]

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blind (and drunken) post, hopefully I won't be repetitive...

if I have a hand that is pitted against 9 other random hands, all which reach showdown, I have the least likely chance of winning the showdown if I have 72o compared to any other hole card combination. with so many players, straights, flushes or full houses win hands more often than not so having a hand with big hand potential makes a significant difference (72o has no big hand potential except a relatively unlikely 3 card full house).

the confusion lies in when I have a hand pitted against ONE random hand... in that specific spot it's obvious 32o is the worst hand, since heads up, EVERY hand dominates 32o in some fashion, even the lowly 72o.

Ultimately, the worst starting hand possible depends on how many opponents you have preflop.

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I guess that we have to differ on the meaning of obvious in respect to the bolded statement since its not obvious to me. At least if you mean, which seems implied in your statement, that every hand dominates 2-3 more than they dominate 7-2.

Heads up 2-3 outperforms 7-2 against every single hand in the deck that has two cards seven or higher.

7-2 does outperform 2-3 heads up against hands where one or both of the oppenents cards are a six, five, four, or three [and the kicker is not a seven, if the kicker to the low cards is a seven, 2-3 again outperforms 7-2].

2-3 off is the better hand against the universe of hands and situtations. That seven two performs better in some subset of poker situations (heads up, against certain low cards) doesn't make it the better hand.

--Zetack

[Zetack]

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How do you mean worst. Do you lose the most money? no - because only fools play it.

Actually the worst hands are the T6s and T9o T8o because people will play them and get in trouble. Even 22 is worse then 73o when it comes to total money lost.

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Uh, what? 22 is a HUGE winner for any good player, as is any pocket pair. Not as big a winner in limit as NL, but certainly not a long run losing hand.

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He said total money lost. He didn't say net money lost or net money won. I believe he means total losses without regard to total winnings.

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This absolutely can not be what he means. If it were so, then he could just as easily have said that AA loses more money than 7-3 off. If you aren't netting, but talking total losses without regard to winnings, then I'd wager that AA loses more for every single player on the planet than any other hand.

[Yads]

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its abuot multiway....72o is worst multiway hand, 32o is worst headsup hand

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Not necessarily, 72 fairs worse against big pocket pairs than 32.