The Danger of Dominated Hands
The Danger of Dominated Hands
The Danger of Dominated Hands
When one speaks of dominated handsone is only referring to the hole cards dealt in Texas Hold'em. A hand that is dominated is one that is of lesser value than the hole cards of another opponent before the flop.
Five Ways a Hand may be Dominated
1. Two players share a common card. In this case lets say a player holds an AJ (suits don't matter) and an opponent holds an AQ. The AJ hand is said to be dominated. When you are dominated in this manner, no matter what your opponent's dominating card is, you are almost always a 3:1 dog. Your AJ is dominated by AQ, AK and AA.
Two Pocket Pairs. Assume you are holding a TT. Your hand is dominated by any opponent holding an AA, KK, QQ, JJ. The higher pocket pair is always a 4:1 favorite over the lower pair.
Two Random Unpaired Cards. If both of your cards are lower than any two random cards held by your opponent then your hand is dominated, Using the photo example, the QdJd is dominated by a whole host of hands pre-flop. The odds, however, are not relatively steady in this example, rather they are dependent on both holdings.
Suited Cards. You hold a suited 76 while your opponent holds a suited 86 (both are the same suit). If your flush hits you have the smaller flush and you are crushed. Your 76 can't beat any flush with a card higher than a seven. Making your flush in this instance will cost you a lot of money if you can't get away from your hand early.
Pairs against Unpaired Cards. The classic race situation is two overcards against an under-pair. In this case the pair is around a 55% favorite to win the hand. Even 22 is favored over AK pre-flop.
Trouble Hands
Some hands are easily dominated. Doyle Brunson in his classic book Super System identified ten hands that he called borderline or trouble hands. The list includes only hands that are not suited, although being suited offers no more than a 2 to 3% increase in odds. Brunson's list included AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT and the 98. Most players will not risk any money with these hands in early position and, if in late position, will get away from these hands if they miss the flop or only make a pair in late position.
Hands that are easily dominated are trouble hands because one either falls in love with the hand or one hits a piece of the flop and falls in love with the pair. One money saving rule in poker is to not go broke with a pair. Too often when holding a trouble hand, I see players chase to the showdown only to lose a large pot from a well concealed dominating hand. I even fell victim to this the other day when AA beat my KK and KK beat my QQ both on flops that connected with no one and the turn and river were both blanks.
When to Play Trouble Hands
The trouble hands pose less of a problem under two circumstances. If they are suited and the flop gets you four flushed you are often in a situation where you hold a flush draw and you are holding two overcards giving you 15 outs to improve your hand. While sometimes your outs are counterfeited by a dominating card and a better kicker, e.g., you hold KhQh and the flop comes JhKc9h, your pair of kings is counterfeited by anyone else holding AK. Your flush draw, however, continues to offer 9 outs and depending on what the pot is offering, may still be a profitable play.
The other condition in which easily dominated hands become playable is when you are playing short handed. At tables of 6 or fewer players, trouble hands actually turn into big hands because the potential for domination is reduced by the fact that fewer hands are dealt making it less likely that someone holds a hand that dominates yours. I still play these hands with a degree of caution, but they play better six-handed than they do 9 or 10-handed
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