[Closed] How profitable is AA really?

Hi Werdna!

AA is the best starting hand in Texas Hold'em. In my PokerTracker Database (~150,000 hands) AA is the most profitable hand. I also had sessions where I lost 6 times with aces in a row. Don't worry. You will win in the long run. It's frustrating in that one single session, but you will get paid off in the future. It does not matter if you play SSS or BSS: Aces are the best starting hand.
Maybe it helps if you post some sample hands and we find some "mistakes"?!

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

0.05/0.10 No-Limit Hold'em (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Texas Grabem 1.8 by www.pokerstrategy.cc.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A♠, A♥
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, CO folds, BU calls $0.40, 2 folds.

Flop: ($0.95) Q♦, 6♣, 4♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.90, BU raises to $1.80, Hero raises to $1.53 (All-In).

Turn: ($4.28) 7♣
River: ($4.28) K♥

Final Pot: $4.28

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0.05/0.10 No-Limit Hold'em (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Texas Grabem 1.8 by www.pokerstrategy.cc.

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A♣, A♥
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, MP3 folds, CO raises to $1.20, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.80.

Flop: ($2.55) 7♠, 5♦, Q♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.63 (All-In), CO calls $0.63.

Turn: ($3.81) 9♦
River: ($3.81) 7♦

Final Pot: $3.81

These two hands I had within 5 mins of each other ♦
Should I have maybe folded on the flop? Or maybe raised instead of called pre-flop (second hand)?

Hand 1 is ok, but in Hand 2 you definitely go all-in. You have the nuts: get the money in ♦

And again: It's normal that you lose with aces even 6 times in a row. I know that it's hard, but you will win in the long run!

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

As Puschkin already said, AA is the most profitable hand in the long run for most players.

As it goes for those two hands are ok, except that you could as well push the second one preflop. Bare in mind that he probably won't fold for 0.6$ more, so get it in when you sure have the best of it.

Btw, what about the other ones?

If you lost these pots, instead of feeling bad about it, work out how much money your bets won, and smile to yourself. Remember, if this guy played these hands, he always plays these hands, and he most often loses.

Definitely all in preflop in the second case.

95k hands is a fairly long run, no? KK is marginally more profitable in NLHE at 4.35 bb/hand vs AA at 4.31/hand for me They're both miles ahead of anything else though, and are excellent hands. Don't doubt it.

Originally posted by MMa7
As Puschkin already said, AA is the most profitable hand in the long run for most players.

As it goes for those two hands are ok, except that you could as well push the second one preflop. Bare in mind that he probably won't fold for 0.6$ more, so get it in when you sure have the best of it.

Btw, what about the other ones?

There was another I lost similiar, think it was a flush and the three I won I won all pre-flop which made me think whether AA is really that profitable.

But reading the comments I guess AA would have to be the most profitable as weaker hands are going to win their share of no-call pots and also lose more big pots.

Originally posted by aciddrop
If you lost these pots, instead of feeling bad about it, work out how much money your bets won, and smile to yourself. Remember, if this guy played these hands, he always plays these hands, and he most often loses.

Definitely all in preflop in the second case.

Well that's what got me thinking ;-)

The three hands I won got me about 3 rounds of blinds with a couple of BB-calls ♦

with BS you gotta be careful with it eventhough its hard sometimes to fold it. but SS just throw the money in pot without any regrets.

Werdna, when I said work out how much money your bets won, I wasn't referring to the pots you won, I was referring to these hands you posted, which were obviously pots you lost.

Take the second hand you posted. In this one, you had the opportunity to be all in preflop with AA. Unless your opponent also has AA, this is always a winning bet. Even as you played it, it is still a winning bet. Lets presume that he had QQ in this instance, and for simplicity, say your stack was $2. Against AA, QQ is a 4:1 underdog. Every five times he makes the bet, he loses four. That is, all in preflop, one time you give him two dollars, four times he gives you two dollars. That is a clear win of $1.2 per bet made, on average. Six dollars profit, averaged over five bets made. See? The fact that he won this pot is irrelevant.

Poker isn't about the best hand preflop always winning, or the best play always getting the reward. Poker is mathematically governed chance. Fools can play dreadfully and get lucky. They won't know that they were lucky. You need to know why your bets were +ev (positive expectation). If you are making +ev bets, what happens to individual pots doesn't matter. You will win money. Learn how to minimise your mistakes, because when you play badly and get lucky, you are losing money too. If you can cause your opponent to make losing bets, it is money in your pocket.

There is a point here, when playing big stack with AA. To make this hand really profitable, you have to be able to lay it down sometimes when the flop (or more likely turn or river) comes down. I used to be absolutely unable to fold it, even with scary board : straight or flush possibilities, which costs a lot because an opponent with a big stack is willing to jam with this kind of hand.

So IMO, AA is absolutely profitable as long as you play smart, and lay it down when you are obviously beaten. If so, the only cases when you will lose big with these hand is :
- when a fish calls your aggressive bets with second (or top) pair all along the hand and finally hits a miracle on the river : second pair or set . And those player are totally welcome, because they are the one who will pay you off
- when a good player reads your AA and slowplays his 2 pairs or set to check-raise you on the river. And that's tough to lay it down in those situations, since you can't avoid thinking : "would he be bluffing me?".

I am quite new to playing Poker, so i'll refrain from giving any tips on how to play AA correctly, because i'd assume that i do not really know myself. However i studied mathematics, and theres one thing about expectation values that is really important to understand: EV always model a "very large number" of samples. Now what does "very large" actually mean? Very few people outside the mathematical world seem to know that the term "very large number" has a strict mathematical definition: It simply means an infinite (!) number. Therefore 6, or 100k (or even 100.000k if you want) is small compared to very large numbers. So positive EV in the mathematical sense means that over an infinite number of hands played the probability of loosing on average is 0%. Please note that this does not mean that it is impossible to loose on average (even when playing an infinite amount of hands). It means though that it is "almost impossible" (math. defined as a probability of 0%) to loose on average when playing an infinite amount of hands, which should be more than comforting for real-life purposes: you're in it for the long-run!

EDIT: Reflecting this i come to the conclusion that what i wrote is actually based on the assumption that the standard deviation (=expectation value for the difference from EV) is within a reasonable range, so what i wrote is not generally true and merely a rule of thumb. Those that are further interested in the matter should take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chebyshev%27s_inequality (i hope that link does not violate the board rules)