Poker Strategy

It's always exciting to look down and see a premium hand like AA or KK in the hole. These hands are extremely strong preflop because they are "made". They do not need any help from the board in order to win. As long as nobody else catches some major help from the flop or beyond, these hands will win unimproved.

You should almost always raise with AA, KK and other group 1 hands preflop. This raise is for the purpose of getting more money into the pot when you are a strong favorite to win against most hands. Also, hopefully this raise will limit the field by preventing any callers behind you with weak hands that contain overcards to your pair or have some other strength and can therefore beat you later on. Still, even if there are many callers already and you are not likely to eliminate anyone, you should sill raise since you likely have the best hand and you are the single most likely person to win.

If you are up against some strong players who limped in early position, you should consider not raising with JJ. For one, it's very possible that they are holding two overcards to your pair and are therefore very close to beating you. In addition you are concealing your hand by just calling and you are at the same time enabling yourself to get away from your hand cheaply after the flop if overcards fall and it's apparent that your jacks are no longer good. Often, if you raise preflop in late position, you don't really know where you're at if an overcard falls on the flop since it's very likely that an opponent holding the overpair will check to you, but on the other hand you don't want to check behind them if you are still ahead.

AKs is essentially a drawing hand. The reason this hand is so strong preflop is because it is the strongest drawing hand. You are drawing for top pair with top kicker (top,top) and you also have the best straight draw and the best flush draw (even though the straight draw is a one-end draw only). Since it is the best drawing hand, it is advised to raise with it since your opponents presumably have weaker drawing hands as long as they do not hold a pocket pair.

The biggest enemy to the AK is a pocket pair. A pocket pair is a made hand that does not require any help from the board and will win if the AK doesn't catch anything from the board. Also if the pocket pair hits a a set, you will almost always lose and many times you will catch your pair and pay him off. Therefore, we advise against raising with AK even if they are suited if there have been many limpers by decent players when action gets to you. Not only is it very possible that they are holding pocket pairs and are actually small favorites over you but it is also extremely likely that they are holding an ace or king themselves making it less likely for you to hit anything and therefore increasing the value of a pocket pair and even something like JTs.

If there has been a raise ahead of you, you should usually reraise with any premium pair including the JJ. Even though we advised to sometimes limp with the JJ in late position, you should be more likely to reraise if there has been a raise already than just call, as long as there aren't many players in already (who have called the initial raise). This reraise protects you hand by preventing more players from coming in with hands that might beat you. Of course, if the original raiser has a bigger pair than your jacks, then you're in pretty bad shape but that's not usually the case since the vast majority of raises are made by hands other than AA, KK or QQ.

With AKs you will virtually always want to call one raise but you don't usually want to reraise. The only exception to this is a very loose game where anyone can hold anything. The raiser might not hold anything really strong and the callers might not have much either in terms of big cards or pocket pairs. Your AK is therefore assumed to be just as "live" as any other two cards and you are therefore a considerable favorite over anyone who does not have a pocket pair.

If you are heads up against one MP or LP raiser, then you should usually go ahead and reraise with AK. This reraise is very important and is done to drive the blinds out and enable you to win unimproved if the original raiser does not hold a pocket pair and he doesn't improve either. You don't really fear a pocket pair that much since you are only a very slight underdog against any pocket pair lower than kings.

Sklansky puts a lot of emphasis on suited cards. For instance, AJs is a group-2 hand but AJo is a group-4 hand. ATs is a group-3 hand but ATo goes way down to group-6. I don' know what kind of research Sklansky has done to support this major difference between suited and non-suited.

Personally, I'm not such a big fan of suited cards especially when it's short-handed. To me KQo is better than KJs but sklansky places the former in group-3 and the latter in group-2.

The problem with suited cards is that you don't make the flush as often as you might think you do. Preflop you only have a 6.4% chance of hitting the flush and that's pretty small. Most of the time that you win with a hand like AKs is through catching pairs. You will catch a pair or better on the flop 32.4% of the time. But you will only flop a flush .8% The 10.9% of the time that you flop a flush draw, you will be committed to the river but you will usually lose since you will only hit the flush 35% of the time. Therefore our advice is pretty straightforward: If the two cards you are dealt do not merit play on their own value, then don't play them for their flush value. The flush value should only enhance the inherent value of your two cards.

A good flop for AA:

What's a good flop for pocket aces? Obviously, you want to see an ace and a pair on board for aces full or better yet, two aces for quad aces. But these kind of flops occur very seldom and they don't generate action. So you will win these pots virtually 100% of the time but you won't make much money post-flop. Any pocket pair, for example will lay low and be extremely prone to fold if there is an ace and a pair on board.

One ace on the flop is also a very strong flop for pocket aces. However, you don't want to see sequential or flush cards accompanying the ace on the flop. A flop of AJ6h is not at all what you're looking for. You will usually not fill up and if you're up against many opponents, chances are good that somebody flopped a flush.

Our definition of a "good flop", however, is a flop that doesn't help you, yet it is such that it is unlikely for your opponents to beat you on the flop or beyond. Whether you want your opponent to hit a piece of the flop depends on how big the pot is already. As a rule, if there has been more than one raise preflop in amulti-way pot (4-5 players or more), you are hoping that your opponents hit absolutely nothing on the flop and that you take the pot down right on the flop. The pot is big enough for you to be content with winning it without any further involvement. However, when the action is heads up or if the pot is not that big yet, then you'd rather prefer that your opponent does catch something and you get some action.

What kind of action is most preferred?

Players who are holding two overcards to the board and are hoping to win by hitting the over card are essentially drawing for runner runner since you already have top pair. They are extremely far behind, yet they will often think that they have six outs or they will try to bluff you out representing a pair and hoping that you just have two big cards. On a flop of 742o against a QJo, your opponent has a measly 1.5% chance of winning. Yet, many players, even good ones, will "peel" on such a flop hoping to hit their overcard.
Players drawing for an inside straight. They only have four outs, yet they will often think they can win by hitting a pair as well.
Players who have hit one pair on the flop have five outs against you. Two cards for trips and three cards for two pair. In the previous example, if the QJo hits a flop of J42o he has an 18.4% of winning. That's pretty slim and as long as the pot isn't huge you'd therefore rather get his action.
Players drawing for the open-ended straight have eight outs against you (in addition to the runner-runner outs for two-pair or trips). These kind of opponents will almost always have the correct odds to justify staying in to the end hoping to make their hand, even though they are still underdogs to you.
If you are up against a QJo on a flop of T92, your opponent has an impressive 34% chance of winning. Worse yet, unlike the other draws, if your opponent hits this one, you are drawing dead. You DON'T want this kind of hand in the pot with you. You'd rather forego on their action and just take down the pot right there. A flush draw is even worose, since they have nine outs instead of eight.
Players holding a pair and a straight draw on the flop are very dangerous and you certainly don't want their action although you are still slightly ahaead. AA vs QJo on a flop of JT9 is a 54.7% - 45.3% favorite. If you are up against QJh and the flop is J65 with 65 of hearts giving your opponent a pair and a flush draw, then it is essentially a toss-up. You are not favored at all. (to be exact, it's actually 50.2% - 49.8%).
Finally, comes the case where you are up against a pair and a straight AND a flush draw. This is the only hand that is still behind you, yet is favored over you on the flop to win the pot. A player holding QJh on a flop of JT9 with T9 of hearts is a 65.1% favorite over you to win!

vs. hands listed below:
	preflop odds	flop	outs	flop odds
	15.7%		no pair, no draw. no single-card outs, runner runner outs for two pair or trips	1.5%
	15.7%		backdoor straight draw	5.6%
	15.7%		backdoor flush draw	6.0%
	15.7%		backdoor straight draw and backdoor flush draw.	9.7%
	15.7%		inside straight draw. 4 outs.	18.7%
	15.7%		drawing to two-pair or trips. 5 outs.	18.4%
	15.7%		open-ended straight draw. 8 outs.	34.2%
	15.7%		open-ended straight draw and backdoor flush draw.	37.0%
	15.7%		flush draw	36.4%
	15.7%		flush draw and backdoor traight draw	38.5%
	22.6%		pair and straight draw.	45.9%
	22.6%		pair and staright draw and backdoor flush draw.	48.6%
	22.6%		pair and flush draw	49.8%
	22.6%		pair and flush draw and backdoor straight draw	52.5%
	22.6%		pair and straight draw and flush draw	65.6%
	20.2%		pocket pair. two outs for a set.	8.4%
	20.2%		pocket pair and backdoor straight draw	13.2%
	20.2%		pocket pair and backdoor flush draw	12.8%
	20.2%		pocket pair and back straight draw and backdoor flush draw	17.4%

group-2 hand (TT, AQs, AJs, KQs, AK)

Grpup 2 hands are the bread and butter of Holdem. These are hands that might not be the best at the moment -they might be beat by a pocket pair- yet they are almost a must-play in most situations and that's because in Holdem an unpaired starting hand is never a big underdog against a pocket pair if it contains to overcards. If these are cards are conected and/or suited then their value go up even more because unlike the pocket pair these cards form straights and/or flushes more easilly.

The biggest problem by far with group 2 hands as opposed to group 1 hands is that they might be dominated. AJ could be up against AK or AQ, KQ could be up against AK or AQ and AQ could be up against AK. Even big slick itself AK, could be up against AA or KK. Therefore, when contemplating when and how to play your hand you must consider the possibility of being up against a dominating hand. While you don't usually "give" your opponent a dominating hand, sometimes it will become apparent after the flop that your hand is no good and yet you will be forced to pay it off. This has happened to me numerous times with a hand like KQ against AQ when a queen hits the flop. In fact I won a big pot today in a PL HE tournament online at partypoker.com when I limped with AQ UTG vs a KQ and a QT2 rainbow hit the flop. The guy bet it very aggressively apparently thinking that I would have raised prefloop with a AQ or better and he lost most of his chips. I wound up winning the SNG tournament in the end.

And so here's some good advice regarding these group 2 hands (other than TT): They are considerably more valuable in an unraised pot or if a maniac has been doing the raising. They go down in value significantly if a solid player has raised who is known to raise only with very strong hands. If you are holding KQ and you know that this player would not raise with an unpaired hand worse than KQ, then you must now hope that he is holding a pocket pair lower than queens or AJ so that your hand is not domainted, and this will not always be the case. A hand like KQ plays best in a loose game where people are likely o play Kxs and Qxs or even Kxo and Qxo. In such a game you should usually go ahead and raise in LP with KQ. If you miss the flop you might even get a free turn because everyone will check to the raiser and if you hit it you can expect other players to be in there with outkicked kings and outkicked queens and thus trapped in a pot they cannot win. If you are holding this very same KQ in a tight game and a solid EP player has raised and everyone folded to you, you are not giving up much by simply tossing that KQ and live to fight another day. Remember, YOU want to be the raiser with a KQ, you don't want to be calling with it because once you're calling a raise it's very possible that you're dominated.

three straight

three flush

three to straight flush

three big cards

small pair

medium pair

big pair/burried

big pair/split

aces

three of a kind