Two Plus Two Older Archives - AJo...WAY overplayed

Thanks for all the replies. Two comments stuck out at me as repeated among multiple responses.

First, the small size of the pot at flop. You're right, this pot wasn't even worth fighting over. I thought he might be bluffing himself and I foolishly let myself get involved in an unnecessary battle....good lesson learned.

Second, quite a few advocated pre-flop raise here. I used to raise or fold AJo UTG, depending on players involved, my assessment of my table image, etc. As I gained a little experience, I tended more toward folding it. That was before I used PT, so I don't have data for how well I did with that approach. SSHE recommends limping with AJo in early and middle position...so I've been doing that about a month. I must confess that I've done it mainly because "well, that's what the book says to do", which is pretty pathetic. I DO raise AJs in pretty much all positions. I play ATs & ATo the same way...raise with the suited and limp with the offsuit.

These posts prompted me to take a look at this group of hands again in PT, and what I found was quite interesting. For background, my PT database has about 20k hands, about 90% at .50/1 and 1/2, with a smattering of 2/4 and 3/6. All Party.

I raise the suited AJ and AT, obviously, because of the increased flush possibility. I limp AJo/ATo in early position. This is consistent with SSHE. My BB/hand with AJs/ATs hovers around 1.00. My BB/hand with AJo/ATo runs about 0.10. This is probably to be expected, since you make a flush more often with the suited hands, right? Well, it turns out, wrong, at least in the relatively small sample size in my PT. I made the same number of A-high flushes with AJs and AJo...and I actually made MORE flushes with ATo than with ATs. And in both cases, flushes were a very tiny component of my overall wins, which of course were much more likely to be top pair, 2 pair, or even just A-high with decent kicker.

I do recognize that 20k is not a large sample, and I would expect the difference in flushes made with suited vs offsuit hands to be more apparent when I get to, say, 100k hands. BUT...that still leaves the question of why I'm doing so much better with AJs/ATs than with AJo/ATo, given that, to date, I haven't made more flushes with them (in fact, have made FEWER flushes with them, by a short-term statistical fluke).

The answer, obviously, is that I'm playng them more aggressively...getting more money in the pot, thinning the field, setting conditions for effective river bluffs, etc. Great lesson learned. I think I'm going back to raising AJo/ATo in loose and passive games, and folding them in tight and aggressive ones.

FWIW, the BB held 87s; he had flopped the nuts. In this particular case, I doubt that a pre-flop raise would have driven him out...I'm guessing he would have called out of BB with suited connectors.

Thanks again to all for the replies; really helped to refine my thinking of the AJ and AT hands.