Playable hands A-x

[Cincy Peach]

relatively new, need some advice on playable hands. Most influenced by SSHE. Most writers think that playing A9 is loose, but it seems that most of my opponants play ANY ace, MOST hands with K or Q, and raise with hands that make their nose itch. The question is, how should this affect my hand selection? assuming a loose game and late position, what is the worst Ax you would play? I have had plenty of times when my A-9 outkicked the A-crap someone else played.

Also . . . I am playing pretty much any suited ace from any position. Suited aces seem very strong - any advice would be appreciated.

[onegymrat]

Hi Cinch,

The question is, how should this affect my hand selection?
Play only very strong hands. Being that you only come in the hand with dominating holdings, your chances of winning increase already. You need to think of this game in the long term. Your losses to a lesser hand will still be far less than your wins.

assuming a loose game and late position, what is the worst Ax you would play?
Generally speaking AT. However, there are circumstances that Axo can be playable or even raisable/reraisable. But from the sound of your inquiry, it's best to not play anything less than AT, for there is much more poker theory that you need to learn and experience. It'll keep you out of trouble.

I am playing pretty much any suited ace from any position.
Someone correct me if my math is off, but you'll hit your flush with suited cards preflop about 7% of the time. That leaves you with just a little ace 93% of the time. With a hand like that, you'll either win a very small pot, or lose a very big pot most of the time.

It seems like your question revolves around justifying playing a weak ace. It's probably one of the hardest thing to wean yourself off of. It's very hard to convince a newbie that ace-little is a problematic hand for them, for they see all sorts of crap take down pots. The main problem is, when you have multi-way action frequently in low-limit games, playing ace-little just doesn't take down pots enough for this to be even close to profitable.

As you have stated, that writers all seem to agree that Axo is unplayable most of the time. You've got to give them some credit. Good luck.