AK, AQ offsuit in the blinds, limit holdem

[AP0CALYP5E]

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Not raising in loose games with AQ, AK and QQ is terrible.

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I disagree. I make so much more money when I limp these hands. You want the guy with A9o betting into you when you have AK. If you raise he is less likely to pay you off.

It's the "You gotta raise that preflop" regurgitation that has allowed me to trap the hell out of people and make so much money.

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If you are playing against players who will often lay down A9 in this situation with an A on board, then you might be correct. However, there are plenty of games out there where a raise w/AK or AQ in the blinds will not stop the guy with a weaker A to pay you off on every street. In this case, you have missed a huge pot equity edge by not raising preflop.

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I just now realized this post was about Limit. So yeah I was mistaken.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

One thing it depends upon is the quality of your opponents. Raising probably has more value if they play almost any two, will raise preflop with pocket pairs and big aces, and play poorly after the flop. It probably has less value if your opponents aren't playing any two suited and you've just happened on a hand where more people on average pick up hands that are at least marginal, like T9o, 44, and A2s.

I'm not sure about the math, but it seems reasonable to suspect that AQ does worse against opponents who will at least limp in with any ace, but fold king-rag or queen-rag than against opponents who will play any ace or king and any two suited because you're likely to have more outs to hit top pair against the second set of opponents, given the same number of people in pre-flop.

[Niediam]

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Not raising in loose games with AQ, AK and QQ is terrible.

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But AQ in the small blind?? What on earth gain is there to doing this against several limpers? You immediately give every 4 outer the proper pot odds to call on the flop. That can't be right unless the players are so poor that they are in there with virtually any two cards.

Another Sklansky/Malmuth quote:" In general you should not raise with offsuit hands (other than AK) except to isolate a weak opponent." and this is in the loose games section, since you mentioned loose games.

See Holdem Poker for Advanced Players, 21st Century Addition, p 161-162.

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It also says on p. 160 that "...if people are coming in with absolutely everything, you have got to raise with an AQ simply because your hand is so much better on average than so many of the other players."

Anyhow, you should read Small Stakes Hold'em by Miller, Sklansky, and Malmuth. Either they changed their mind about these types of hands or their advice for playing them slow only applies to a very specific type of game that doesn't really exist anymore. Something along the lines that your opponents play loose preflop but reasonably well postflop.

[McGinty]

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Anyhow, you should read Small Stakes Hold'em by Miller, Sklansky, and Malmuth. Either they changed their mind about these types of hands or their advice for playing them slow only applies to a very specific type of game that doesn't really exist anymore. Something along the lines that your opponents play loose preflop but reasonably well postflop.

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In the Small Stakes Hold'em introduction, they say that any differing advice from SSHE and Hold'em for Advanced Players is not a contradiction nor a retraction, but rather a difference in the types of games the books are written for.

[emerson]

I have both books and don't see any contradiction. In addition, I said in my post that you might raise with something like AQ against many limpers if their limping standards were very poor, such as any two cards.

The advice in the Sklansky book is spot on for the typical mid-stakes (8/16 to 40/80) games of today. There is usually a mix of very good, average, and poor players. The advice to raise in such games is for a table of weakies, like you might find in a 4/8 game.