Ace-Queen, An Expensive Combination

When it comes to folding cards in pre-flop poker betting, around 75% of the hands you will be dealt should be instant decisions (unless you are bluffing or stealing the blinds), 5% of the hands you receive will be premium opening hands, and how you play the other 20% of hands will determine whether you poker session is a lucrative one or a loser. This means that you are going to be faced with marginal decisions in one-in-five hands, and although your position may deter you from getting involved in a pot with pocket sevens or JT suited, there are some hands which can be harder to discard than others.

These are known as “trouble hands” because you believe they are better than they actually are. They are often over-played by new and experienced players alike due to their high-ranking value and potential for taking a massive pot, but they often end up losers and costing the people who play them a lot of money. Trouble hands would include AJ (off-suit), KT, KJ, and JJ, and some people would even include QQ (known to those who over-play them and frequently lose as “the Bitches”). But possibly the worst pairing you can receive in your hole cards is AQ.

Whereas AQ is favourite to beat all the other non-paired trouble hands, and in fact be favourite against any other hand 95% of the time, it is the way in which it is played that makes it an expensive combination. Online poker players looking at this pairing will see more than an ace with a good kicker, and imagine a rainbow flop of KJT delivering them with a top straight. So rather than tentatively entering the pot with a limp or semi-bluff, poker players tend to get involved with much higher stakes than AQ justifies. If you have a look at some of the odds of AQ winning against some other pre-flop hands, you will see exactly what we mean:-

AA vs AQ – 92%/8%
AK vs AQ – 76%/24%
KK vs AQ – 72%/28%
QQ vs AQ – 70%/30%
JJ vs AQ – 58%/42%
TT vs AQ – 58%/ 42%
AQs vs AQ – 57%/43%

Even against pocket 2s, AQ is at a 55%/45% disadvantage, and with it representing value for players in late position to limp into a pot with small to mid pocket pairs when the opportunity exists, being dealt AQ presents a real conundrum. Do you bet into a pot too heavily to eliminate the players holding other marginal cards, and risk getting expensively turned over by a hand that dominates you, or limp in and hope that an ace lands on the board and that none of the other limpers catches their set?

You can only make these decisions in the context of the game in which you are playing, your position at the table and the betting tendencies of the other players around you. However, knowing that AQ could turn into an expensive combination may make you put your own betting into perspective. As a rule – If you think you are beat in a hand then you probably are! And more often than not it will occur with AQ!