Transmission Wire

Everybody knows that poker player at their local game that will play any ace you put in his hand. In fact there’s probably a lot of them out there, maybe you are one of them, who think that Ace Nine suited (”it was suited!”) is worthy of putting your money on the table for. In the long run, though, for every time you’ve won a pot with one of those hands, there will be at least 5 other pots exactly like it where you end up losing money.

The problem with playing raised pots with weak aces is that it’s just too hard to lay it down when you pair the ace and you end up giving your money to a player with a higher kicker. Against most of the range of hands an opponent could be raising with, ace junk is losing to most of them, slightly ahead of a few, and absolutely crushed by a decent percentage. If you aren’t flopping aces up, it’s hard to be confident in your hand enough to take a lot of heat, so what are you playing it for? It’s a money losing hand.

In fact, a hand like Ace Five is more valuable (though still not worth it) than playing and Ace Six or Ace Seven, etc. as it has the added equity of being able to make a wheel (the lowest possible straight Ace 2 3 4 5) with both hole cards, whereas the mid range kicker aces have no straight value, and often can’t win a big pot with kicker alone.

Most players who still find themselves playing these kinds of weak aces for a raise could easily fix what is probably a big leak in their game by cutting these kinds of hands out completely, cold turkey.