Two Plus Two Older Archives - Royal holdem starting hands

1)if u flop a strt- Fold- the board will pair up- and the trips won't be yours...

Agreed, unless the straight includs 4 to a royal and you're only forced to all one small bet.

2)play anything paired- quads happen all the time

TT and JJ are crap, QQ is deceptively weak, AK is a favourite over KK.

3)play anything suited...royals are the nuts nuts.

Royals happen too rarely to be worth chasing after.

4)raise KK or AA PF

I don't think raising PF is ever a good idea in this game, but it's not a topic that's been explored in enough depth for anybody to form a definitive opinion.

5)play AK- hope for the nut boat

With the right pot odds and donkish enough opponents, you can get away with calling one bet if you hold just a pair of aces. Never do this with AQ though.

6)only play if u flop 2 pair- or are chasing the royal?

Don't bother chasing the royal unless you flop a four-flush and have at least top and bottom or a flopped straight to fall back. Should this be the case, never call more than one small bet.

Calling one small bet when you have an overpair to a paired board (i.e. You hold AA on a flop of QTT) is generally not a bad idea.

Hand rankings based on PokerStove tests:

1. AA

Playable from any position and worth a raise if you consider raising to be +EV in this game. Don't cap a re-raise though, as you're likely up against another AA.

2. AK

Playable from any position and good enough to raise from decent position and to call a raise unless you'd be left out of position against a tight player.

3. KK

If you raise this at all, do so only from the button and maybe the CO. Surrender to a raise if you suspect AK, but you can (Even though you're a 2-1 dog) play this against a suspected AA if you're confident in your post-flop ability. Otherwise, this can probably be played like AK.

4. AQ

If raising's your thing in this game, you can try for a button or CO steal if it's folded to you on a tight table. Otherwise, it should be folded from UTG, played from UTG+1 or better on a passive table, played from CO or better on an aggressive table, and folded to a raise unless you have a damn good reason not.

5. KQ

Should always be folded unless you're on the button or the CO (and even then, you're better off not playing it off the button on an aggro table). Like AQ, you can try a blind steal from good position, but show respect from any resistance unless it's from a donk or a maniac, especially since KQ's biggest achilles heel is that it's even weaker against AA than JJ or TT are.

6. QQ

Only good in an unraised pot from the button or the SB.

7. AJ

Only mentioned because -- in spite of being a significant dog against QQ, it's a very marginal favourite against KQ. Don't let the A deceive you though: In multi-way scenarios, even flopping top boat leaves you very vulnerable and given that people love to play any old A, it's far more likely to run into a domination scenario than KQ is. (Domination is nowhere near as bad as in regular HE though.)

Other hands are absolutely cack and should only be played from the BB. Unintutively, TT shares the dubious honour of being the weakest hand in in this game, as it will pretty well never win unless you hit quads, the chances of which are far worse than the chances of flopping a set in standard HE. JT, while a favourite over TT, is a bigger dog over a higher pocket pair than TT is.

Interesting hand properties peculiar to Royal Hold'em:

1. A dominated hand fares better against a pocket pair than a smaller pair does, but two random undercards fare worse against an over pair than a smaller pair does. (i.e. AK is strongest against AA, followed by TT and then KQ.)