Posts Tagged ‘kicker’
Author: A4A«£, A4AV, A4A4. Always raise and reraise before the flop with these hands.
A4K4, A4K*, A4KV, A4K*. Raise in early position and just call in late position unless you're raising to steal the blinds.
A4Q4, A4Q*, A4QV, A4Q4. Same play as with the kings, except you don't have to play the hand at all if you have to call three or more bets cold. That raise and reraise ahead of you mean something-probably that someone has pocket aces, kings or AK.
A4J4, A4J*, A4J*, A4J4. These hands are usually best if there's no preflop raise, or if you're short-handed. Being suited helps but not until you see the flop.
A4104, A410*, A±10V, A*104. At least you can make the nut straight using both cards, which is a big plus.
A494, A*9*, A49V, A494. A 9 kicker is about as low as I will play in most instances. If another player in the hand has an ace, his kicker will almost always be bigger than mine.
A484, A474, A*64, A454, A444, A434, A*2*.
Although these hands are all suited, they don't have much value until you see the flop. You will flop two more 4s only 10.944% of the time, which is about one out of nine times. You need to be playing in late position or have a lot of other players in the hand to have the right odds to see the flop. You can, though, raise to steal the blinds with these hands.
A454», A45V, A45^. If you absolutely must play an ace with a garbage card, this is the one to pick. Why? Because you can make a wheel using both hole cards. A5 doesn't win many hands, but it's worth more money to you than A6 because of its straight potential.
A*8*, A48V, A484, A47*, A*7V, A474, A46*, A46V, A464, A44*, A44V, A444, A*3*, A±3V, A*34, A42*, A*2¥, A*2*. These are all of the other hands with an ace. They are all garbage hands, and you should play them only in the blinds or perhaps when you're stealing the blinds. If you follow my advice, these will be the hands that the other players will be holding when you beat them.
There's one other time when you might think about playing an ace with a bad kicker-when the jackpot for your game is very high and it takes aces full or better to be beaten to qualify. Statistically speaking, it's likely that the winning hand will contain exactly one ace more than any other card. Let's look at an example:
You hold A*6V, the board is A*A*J49*A4, and another player holds QVQf, or JYJ*.
That's a jackpot in most cardrooms in the country. You have four aces, and your opponent has a full house—aces full of kings, queens or jacks. In most places, the loser must play both hole cards, and the winner must play only one hole card. In some places, the winner's kicker must beat the board, which is a stupid rule because it means you're using six cards to make up your poker hand. In most places, though, the winner's kicker is irrelevant.
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Tags: blinds, kicker, odds, online casino, poker