Hole Cards in a Race HU

Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | Beginner Lesson

We have all been in the situation where we are either calling off our stack or making the push all-in.  This entry is about the math and winning percentages of heads up.

Think of your favorite pocket pair and lets see how well it really does in the long term.

You might be surprised to see some of the numbers that follow.

Heads Up Races with Premium Hole Cards
What are Premium Hole Cards: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK suited, AK.
Already looking at the chart we can see how the numbers of how dominating these hands can be, and why we always would love to look down and see rockets every time.

These hands most of the time are the best hand going into the race in heads up, so it is your opponent that needs to improve to win.

Have a look at AKo vs the pair 66, premium doesn”t always mean better.

Heads Up Races with Pocket Pairs
When your hole cards already start off as a pair you are statistically favorite to win because you have a made hand, one pair.  With the higher pairs compared to the lower pairs you can see how there is a difference in the winning percentage with a dramatic drop.   This is because players with over cards need only to hit 1 of their 2 cards to improve.  Now you will notice 2’s are 49%.  That is because of times where the board 2 pairs and you are out kicked and you can only make the small end of draws and flushes.

The Hole Cards in a Race Heads Up was to show you the basic winning percentages of running the community cards in Texas Holdem, and not comparing them to what your opponent does have but vs all the other match ups that are possible.

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3 Comments to Hole Cards in a Race HU

Pinky
June 20, 2009

So if I understand this correctly even though i’m statistically favorite to win with a pocket pair, i’m still better off to to hold AKo preflop than say 55. Good to know.

Something else I realized, only 2% better odds holding suited cards. Don’t know why but I thought that would be higher, then again my math…not so good ;)

I like the charts, makes it easy to refer to, images are always a good thing when learning.

Assistanc3
June 21, 2009

I wouldn’t go as far and say better, I would include AKo and 55 in a “range of hands”. I’m hoping to start putting out more articles with math so first I am starting off with some really easy ones.

The images really does help to visualize the comparison.
I’ll be sure to keep including them, ty.

twinsie
June 22, 2009

TY for this lesson, it becomes clearer for me to understand because of this article & what happened when playing yesterday and my posted screenshot.
I went all in with my KJo vs 33, and the pp held up!! Perfect example of the “math factor”.
Sooo ” teach” :)

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