AJ against PFR

Limit 3/6

I’ve been making it common practice to toss AJ against a raise pre-flop. If I’m in the blinds I call. If I think raiser is stealing (because of late position or other info) I re-raise (in the blinds or not), but blind steals/battles aside, usually I’m muckin it. My line of thinking is this:

If you compare the top 10 or 15 likely raising hands to AJ, not only is AJ is rarely winning, it is often dominated.


Am I way off base here?
Is this one of my leaks that I’m trying to identify & fix?
If so, is it really costing me that much in the long run?

[W. Deranged]

You are probably playing AJ correctly almost all the time.

Most importantly, you've "stumbled" upon an extremely important line of poker thought: hand ranges. The idea that AJ does not play well against the average range of hands that most players will open raise is exactly the reason we fold it.

Another important idea is that of the Gap Concept (detailed best in Sklansky's "Tournament Poker FAP"). The idea is that it takes a much stronger hand to act (by calling or raising) after someone has raised in front of you than it does to raise initially. A hand which may rate to be a favorite against a bunch of random hands (like AJ) may become an underdog once we know that someone has a strong enough hand to raise with.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you. That's good news that I'm on the right track. It's bad news, that I'm still in search of leaks.

[W. Deranged]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you. That's good news that I'm on the right track. It's bad news, that I'm still in search of leaks.

[/ QUOTE ]

We all live in constant search of leaks.