This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
Have you ever had a feeling your poker hands always seem to be only the second
best?
When you finally connect with the flop and actually get a hand worth playing,
your opponents always seem to have a stronger kicker, a stronger straight, a
stronger flush.
If that sounds familiar, it might be because you’re calling with mediocre
hands.
As a general rule in poker, calling is a losing play more often than not, and
calling with bad to mediocre hands is one of the fastest ways to burn through
your money fast.
This article will show you examples of such hands, why they’re trouble, and
examine should you even bother with them in the first place or ditch them
altogether.
Avoid calling too much with these 5 hands!
1) A2 Offsuit
A2 offsuit (two different suits, for example A♥2♣) and similar offsuit small Aces (also called rag Aces) should be avoided,
unless you’re itching to give your money away.
They’re often more trouble than they’re worth, due to the kicker
problems.
A lot of recreational players will play basically any Ace, be it
suited/unsuited and regardless of their table position and other
considerations.
Then, when they hit their top pair on the flop, they overvalue it, put in way
too much money in the middle because “top pair”, then they bemoan their luck
when their opponent shows up with the better kicker and claim the poker site
is rigged for action.
Don’t be that guy.
Do yourself a favour and ditch weak Aces from your calling range altogether.
Even when you hit your Ace on the flop, you run the risk of having your hand
dominated by stronger Aces.
For example by a hand like Ace Queen which is much better. Nathan discussed how to play your AQ the right way in a recent video.
Getting back to our "Ace Rag" hands though like A2...
Since you called a raise preflop, it’s implied your opponent has a stronger
hand than you going to the flop. (This is known as the range advantage).
This means your opponent is likely to have a number of stronger Aces in their
range, and the problem with Ace-Deuce in particular is that any other Ace has
you beat.
The prospect of getting a straight with these baby Aces isn’t quite likely
either, and it certainly doesn’t justify calling preflop.
What’s worse, you run the risk of having the so-called ass-end of a straight,
meaning your opponent could hold a stronger straight.
For Example:
If you hold A♥2♣
And the flop is 3♠4♥5♠, your opponent could hold 7♦6♦.
Now, this scenario is unlikely, but then again, so is flopping a
straight.
The point is, if you have some sort of a drawing hand, you always want to make
sure you’re drawing to the strongest possible combination.
Otherwise you run the risk of having only a second best hand, which is the
worst hand to have in poker.
See my recent ultimate Texas Hold'em cheat sheet for much more on this.
2) 34 Suited
These small suited connectors (for example 3♠4♠) may seem pretty enough, but like the previous entry on the list,
they’re often more trouble than they’re worth.
First of all, flopping a straight or a flush is very rare in no-limit Texas
hold’em.
For example, the chance of flopping a straight when having two connected
hole cards is only about 75:1, or 1.33%, and the chance of flopping a flush
with a suited hand is only 118:1, or 0.8%.
Not great.
Now, chances of flopping some sort of straight or flush draw are significantly
higher, but you still need to rely on hitting your outs on later streets (and
you’re bound to miss more often than not), and even then you aren’t guaranteed
to win the pot, because your opponent can have an even stronger straight or
flush.
This is one of the reasons why some people think online poker is rigged.
But this is basically the biggest problem with these baby suited connectors. You’re
putting yourself in the situation where you’re basically begging to get a
flush over flush.
Also, like with the rag Aces, if you get a straight, you will often get the
bottom-end of a straight, which can cost you a big pot.
While there certainly are situations in which small suited connectors can be
played (like other entries on this list) calling with them is usually a bad
idea.
And the smaller the connectors, the more inclined you should be to ditch them
altogether due to the reverse implied odds.
(By the way, reverse implied odds are the opposite of the implied odds. When
you calculate the implied odds, you’re trying to figure out how much money you
can win if your draw completes.
With reverse implied odds, you calculate how much you stand to lose if your
draw completes, but your opponent ends up holding an even stronger hand).
See my recent ultimate poker odds cheat sheet for much more on this.
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3) QJ Offsuit
A lot of recreational poker players will play virtually all broadway hands
(i.e. hands that can make the strongest possible straight), regardless of
their table position or the previous action.
One such hand is QJo (for example Q♦J♣), and calling with it can be dangerous because like most other entries on
this list, you run the risk of your hand being dominated by stronger hands.
(By the way, a dominated hand is the one that is highly unlikely to win
against another hand.
For example, if you have Ace-King and your opponent has Ace-Queen, you
dominate your opponent, because they can only win the hand if they hit a Queen
AND you don’t hit a King or other stronger combinations).
Playing QJo and similar weak broadways is especially ill-advised in 3-bet
pots, where you’re basically guaranteed to have your hand dominated if you
call a 3 bet.
This is something that Nathan discusses at length in The Micro Stakes Playbook.
(A 3-bet preflop by the way is simply a situation where somebody raises and then somebody else re-raises).
If you call a 3-bet with QJ, suited or not, you’re going to be in bad shape
most of the time.
A number of hands that can dominate you is through the roof: premium pocket
pairs, like Aces, Kings or Queens, other broadway hands like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ,
KJ and so on.
So unless you have a very specific read your opponent makes crazy,
ill-conceived 3-bets with some random hands, and you have other advantages
like position or some skill edge postflop, your hand is virtually always going
to be an underdog.
Same thing goes with calling with QJ from the blinds. Due to the structure of
no-limit Texas hold’em, you’re guaranteed to lose money over the long run
playing from the blinds.
It’s just how the game is set up, and it’s true for beginners and world class
professionals alike. The best you can hope for is losing no less than
necessary when you’re playing from the blinds.
And to do so you should be careful with the hands you choose to play from the
blinds, and if possible, avoid marginal situations that could cost you a lot
of money.
And calling with a hand like QJo fits the description.
Over the long run, it’s virtually impossible to play profitably out of
position without a range advantage, and if you call from the blinds, this is
exactly what you’re doing.
You’re basically putting your opponent in the best money-making situation in
poker: playing in position as a preflop aggressor.
Now, that’s not to say you should just fold all the hands dealt to you in the
blinds, as this is hardly an optimal long-term solution, and can leave you
vulnerable to getting exploited.
You should definitely defend your blinds from time to time, and in some cases,
you can do so even with a hand like QJo.
But the blind defence is an advanced concept that goes way beyond the scope of
this article. BlackRain79 Elite Poker University has some great videos about advanced blind defence strategy.
Suffice it to say that calling with easily dominated hands out of position is
generally a losing play. But as with any other general rule in poker, there
are times to break it if the situation requires it.
4) K9 Suited
Like other hands on the list, there are spots where you can play K9s (for
example K♣9♣) profitably, but calling with it can spell trouble.
Similar to QJ, you run the risk of your hand being dominated by other Kx hands
like KT, KJ, KQ.
It’s unlikely your opponents will open-raise with weaker Kings, so if you
happen to hit the King on the flop, you can find yourself in an awkward
position on later streets.
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For example, you call with K9s preflop and by the river you have a top pair,
mediocre kicker. Your opponent has bet the flop, bet the turn, and fires a
third shell on the river.
Now what?
There really aren’t any hands villain could be betting for value that you’re
ahead of. Your hand then becomes a pitiful bluff catcher at best.
Unfortunately, in the above hypothetical scenario, there’s nothing to indicate
that your opponent is bluffing.
Triple-barrel bluffing isn’t something a lot of players are comfortable with
doing in general, so when someone fires a third shell on the river, more often
than not, they’re going to have something to show for it.
K9 does have an advantage in the sense it can make a strong flush, but this is
also a double-edged sword, because it can make only the second best
hand.
If you hit your flush with K9s, your opponent could hold any suited Ace, which
will end up causing you a huge pot.
If you want to get really good at poker fast, you need to avoid playing hands like this too much.
5) 96 Suited
Aside from the fairly obvious reason to play this hand which I’m not getting
into right now, a hand like 96s (for example 9♥6♥) is best avoided.
Even though there are spots where you can play suited one-gappers and even
two-gappers, you should exercise caution when you do so.
The bigger the gap between the cards, the less likely it is to hit a straight.
Therefore, suited connectors are a far better option than their unconnected
counterparts, like J8s, 75s and so on.
Even connectors don’t hit their straights nearly as often as you might hope
for, and these gappers do so even less frequently.
Also, like other hands on this list you often end up having a second best
hand, because you’re not drawing to the strongest possible straight/flush.
For example:
If you hold 9♥6♥ and the board is
8♣7♦5♣J♥Q♣
Your opponent can have T9 or any number of combinations that make a flush.
If we flip the script and suppose you hit your flush with 96s, you still
aren’t in the clear, as your opponent can also have an even stronger
flush.
In a lot of scenarios with these mediocre hands, you’ll either end up winning
a small pot, or losing a big one.
In other words, the upside is very limited, and it doesn’t really justify the
risk.
If you want to go from $0 to $1000 in poker fast, you would be well advised to avoid playing hands like this too often!
Final Thoughts
In poker, there are no hard and fast rules to abide by at all costs, and
choosing which hands to play in x spot and avoid in y spot isn’t something
that can be done mechanically.
That’s why memorizing starting poker hands graphs by heart is largely a futile
endeavour.
And this is why there is no
advanced poker strategy
that can tell you which hands are always right to play in all situations,
against all player types.
Poker is way too dynamic of a game for that to be useful on the felt. The most
successful poker players aren’t the ones who follow the rules the best, it’s
the ones that can think for themselves.
The point of this article isn't, therefore, to tell you that certain hands
should be avoided like the plague, and playing them is always a losing
bet.
It was rather to always consider the context of the hand, and consider are you
putting yourself in a profitable situation, or are you setting yourself up to
lose money.
As a general rule, calling is usually a losing play, because you agree to play
on someone else’s terms. As the old adage goes, if it’s good enough for a
call, it’s good enough for a raise.
So the next time you’re pondering a call, always ask yourself:
What happens if I bet/raise here instead?
Poker becomes a lot more enjoyable, and more profitable, when you’re the one
dictating the tempo.
Lastly, if you want to know my complete strategy for making $1000+ per month
in poker, make sure you grab a copy of
my free poker cheat sheet.
