Ace-Queen Part 2: The True Value

Ace-Queen Part 2: The True Value

By Sean Lind

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Part two of a three-part article on the biggest trouble hand in poker. This article will turn A-Q into a long-term winning hand for the serious player.

In part one of this three-part series I discussed the statistical strength of A-Q, and began to look into where it stands at a full table. Here in part two I'll get into more depth on its full-ring-game status.

A-Q's Sticking Points

I'm going to run some scenarios by you here. I'm not worried about getting exact with math - these are meant to be generalizations.

If you raise A-Q pre-flop, you will be up against four different categories of hands:

1. Hands that have A-Q dominated
2. Hands that A-Q dominates
3. Coin flips
4. Rags

1. Hands that have A-Q dominated: AA, KK, QQ, A-K

Allen Cunningham used A-Q to knock out 5th place finisher Justin Bonomo in last night's WSOPC Las Vegas.

We can put our A-Q win rate at 0% for AA, KK and QQ. You should be raised out of the pot pre-flop. If you do somehow see a flop, you lose somewhere around 90% the time on average. The big pots you win will be canceled out by the big pots you lose when flopping A-Q against aces or queens.

With A-K it's a little trickier. Let's say you get raised out pre-flop 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time you're seeing variety of flops:

• Ace-high board: you lose significant money

• Queen-high board: you win small money

• A-Q-high board: you win significant money

• A-Q-K high board: you lose significant money

• Flopping straights: you make medium - large money

• Flopping straight draws: you lose medium money

• Flops that miss you: you lose small money

If you just look at the options, you'll see that all the results work to almost cancel each other out. The problem with my little list is that we haven't weighted the options with probability. The odds of you missing everything are by far the highest.

The odds of an ace-high board are more than double those of an A-Q-high board.

The odds of flopping a straight are half those of flopping a straight draw.

Once you weight it, you'll see that A-Q vs. A-K is a very negative EV proposition. Not only do you lose 50% off the bat, out of the other 50% you lose considerable money. This makes our first group of hands less than a 0% win rate, or -EV.

2. Hands that A-Q dominates: A-J, K-Q, A-T, Q-J

All of these hands are similar to the scenario as the A-Q vs. A-K, but in reverse. You dominate all these hands. The only difference is that these hands are weaker, making them more likely to fold to you pre-flop, and less likely to play heavy after the flop. You make less money against any one of these than you lose against A-K.

Collectively they become more profitable than your losses against A-K. This makes the second group of hands a +EV scenario with a positive win rate.

3. Coin Flips: 22-JJ

Even though 22-77 are not in the top 20 hands, in a cash game it still can make sense to see lots of flops with them. People will be calling your single raise with these hands. These are the possible scenarios on the flop (excluding random flushes and straights winning/losing to boats):

• You both flop nothing
• You flop top pair
• Your opponent hits a set, you hit nothing
• You hit top pair or better, your opponent hits a set

When you both flop nothing, I'm going to put it at a 50% win rate. Half the time the player has a low enough pair they will fold; the other half they don't, and won't.

All this information becomes moot when playing a Gus Hansen style of poker.

Where you flop the top pair, and they miss, they fold. The times they do call and hit a set vs. the times they do call and miss will even out in the long run.

They hit a set, you hit nothing. You fold.

You hit top pair, they hit a set. You lose significant money.

For the third series of hands, you lose significant money on the whole. There are no scenarios where you will win big pots consistently, but there is a scenario where you will lose them.

If you hit a straight vs. a set, you will win a big pot, but the amount of times you win vs. the times you lose when the board pairs cancel each other out.

4. Rags

These hands all fold to you pre-flop, giving you a 100% win rate, but yielding almost no money.

The Results

1. Hands that have A-Q dominated: -EV (medium loss)
2. Hands that A-Q dominates: +EV (medium win)
3. Coin flips: -EV (large loss)
4. Rags: +EV (very small win)

In all of the scenarios listed, the calculations reveal A-Q's potential for losing significant money in the long run. You have no ability to control what type of hands the other players will be playing against you, forcing you into many -EV situations with A-Q.

The final aspect to discuss is flushes. A-Q suited hitting a flush will have the nuts. The small pots you win will cancel out with the small losses you take chasing and missing (with acceptable odds). When you do hit the flush, you win small to very big pots.

I feel that this aspect of A-Q suited is enough to push the win rate out of the red and into the black. If you only ever played A-Qs in ABC poker against solid ABC players, it would be +EV and A-Qo would be -EV. A combination of both of them should come out somewhere around even.

If you are able to avoid running into sour situations, and only play the pots that are good for you with A-Q, being the top 5% hand it is, it has the potential to make some serious coin.

In the final part of this article, I'll go through some ideas of how to play A-Q. After all, all of this information is useless without a way to put it to use.