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Introduction

A lot of people have problems with overcards and don’t know how to play them right. Have you ever heard the joke “AK is like Anna Kournikova, looks good, but never wins?” On the other hand, overcards are the most played starting hands of a tight aggressive player with good and very good pot equities. Close to 60% of a TAG player’s starting hands expected overcards in a wider sense [1]. No other hand is played more often than AKo (“Big Slick”).
Learning their strengths and weaknesses will have a lasting effect on your poker career. Strong players make a lot of their profit with these kinds of hands. They know how to get the best out of them and when to throw them away. Their bad image and the problems many players have often just result from their inability to correctly deal with them: “Playing Overcards correctly is tricky. Many players who have studied and played seriously for years still do not feel at ease with them” [2]. This article is structured with explanation of the most important terms first, then describing the characteristics for a clear understanding. The real analysis starts on the flop. For flop play, I will introduce three important ideas that will help you to value the playability of certain overcard hands in certain situations. After that I will present strategies for flop play. In this context, I will also discuss the turn and river with some sample hands. This article is primarily designed to help low stakes players, but may help you even if you already play on higher limits.