Joined: Mar '11
Location: Canada
Age: 46 (M)
Posts: 1490
We should totally start the "We hate AQ" club. I think it's Doyle Brunson who hates AQ too. It's a hard to play, especially in EP as it can put you in a lot of spots where even when you hit TPTK, you're dominated. Will post a graph for giggles. These are the results of my AQ's
Joined: Oct '09
Location: Spain
Age: 63 (M)
Posts: 2851
All depends if you´re playing AQ as an all-in hand regularly as I see people do in all types of games. Unless you are in a "high blind" stage or push/fold, then this is a great hand. Otherwise, AQ is not that great, contrary to popular belief.
The only pockets I will "always" push pre-flop, are AA and KK, although I´m still getting busted with those 2 against any old garbage apparently. (lost 2 out of 3 tourneys that way yesterday pre-flop again!)
Even a hand like 23o will win about 1 out of 3 times pre-flop against AQo !!! (check it out) People don´t seem to realise this, and that´s when the "badbeat" rantings begin. I´ll be honest...I didn´t realise this until just now...
Really helps to put things in perspective. Kind of lost track of odds and why people call with that kind of garbage when they have a big stack. Thanks for the post, woke me up again!
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 2387
AQ especially suited are very good cards to start with, but as with any pocket cards many factors dictate the outcome. What is your position at the table, early, mid, late or in the blinds? Are the players calling raises with almost any two cards? How many players are in when the flop comes down? Have there been any raises and/or reraises? Did you raise or reraise preflop? How good did you flop? How good do you feel other players flopped when they call or raise your c-bet? I'll take AQo over a lot of other pocket cards for sure.
Perhaps you are overplaying AQ in some spots. At SH tables I'm opening AQ from all positions because it's very good hand. Depending on your opponents 3bet frequency you can call 3bets ith AQ, but if someone 3bets just the top of his range, like JJ+, AK or JJ+, AQ+ then you'll be most likely in coinflip or you'll be dominated. It's good hand to open raise, but when you'll face a 3bet then you are most likely behind or dominated.
Well, on micros AQ is pretty good hand because almost always you know where you are in this particular hand when holding AQ. When you face 3bet from regular player then you are most of the time dominated and behind and it's ez fold. When you get called the regs range is pretty much face up, so they have pocket pairs most of the time, so it's just coinflip and you don't want coinflips when playing cash games, do you?
But when playing vs. weak players it's strong hand. Most of the time villain will be dominated - you'll get called by a lot of Qx's, like KQ, QJ and also weak aces - there are two aces better than your AQ and one of them is pocket pair, so you have A2 to AJ dominated and many donks will play those hands. So it's all kinda just about knowing who are you playing with
Yeah I totally agree with you LooseKiddie. AQ is a easy hand to overplay, it IS good, but it looks better than it really is. It's pretty much like AJ to me, you have to pick your spots with it, not try to play it agressive for value everytime you have it...
