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Going Against Conventional Poker Wisdom

By The PokerStrategyking

If you are a good poker player, you must have a sense of what hands to play and what hands to fold in a given situation. For example, say you are playing no-limit hold em and before you act, an early position player has raised and 2 players called. Which hand is a better hand for you to call with, AJ offsuit or Q9 suited?

Technically Ace high is better than Queen high but calling here with AJ could prove to be a costly error. What kind of flop are you hoping for with AJ? You can flop top pair and easily be dominated by 1 or more players. Q9 suited is a good hand to call a raise with in a multi-way pot because it is a hand that can bust your opponents. Let’s explore this further. You’re in the cutoff seat and the early position player makes it $20 to go and is called by 2 players. You have the aforementioned AJ offsuit. The flop is A,9,4 rainbow and the raiser instantly bets $75. One guy calls and the action is back to you. Now what do you do? You hit your ace but you have to think at least one of these players has you crushed. Are you really willing to call an all-in on the turn for all of your chips? Needless to say, you should have folded this hand pre-flop.

Now let’s re-play this hand and say this time you have Q9 suited. The preflop action is the same. Your call here is better because if you hit your hand, no one is likely to put you on Q9 suited. You will not often hit this hand, but when you do, you stand to make a lot of chips from it. These are the hands that bust amateurish players.

Until next time, may the chips fall your way.


by Johnson