Troublesome Hands in Poker

Playing premium hands and obvious garbage preflop is straightforward: we always play the former aggressively and simply fold the latter. However, there are so-called troublesome hands that require a more nuanced approach depending on the situation.

These hands fall in strength between premium and weak hands, and misplaying them can significantly reduce your win rate. In this article, we'll look at several categories of such hands and discuss the best ways to play them preflop.

Table of Contents:

- Offsuit Broadway Hands (ATo-JTo)

- AQo and AJo

- JJ and TT

- Low Pocket Pairs (22-66)

Offsuit Broadway Hands (ATo-JTo)

Offsuit Broadway hands often seem strong at first glance, as they feature high cards that can hit top pairs. However, their strength is deceptive and heavily dependent on your position at the table.

In late positions, such as Cutoff and Button, offsuit Broadway hands should be played aggressively, especially if no one has entered the pot before you. These are good hands for raising with the intention of stealing the blinds. By doing so, you put pressure on the blinds, forcing them to either fold or defend with weaker hands.

However, if you are in an early position, the situation for these hands changes dramatically. Open-raising with offsuit Broadway from an early position becomes risky because the likelihood increases that one of the players behind you will 3-bet or call with a stronger hand.

In Hand2Note 4 reports, I filtered situations where I opened from early position with offsuit Broadway:

A negative win rate of -8.2 bb/100 indicates that in such situations, it is preferable to fold and avoid participating in the hand. This will help minimize losses and improve your overall win rate in the long run.

AQo and AJo

AQo and AJo are fairly strong hands that should be opened with a raise not only from late positions but also from early ones. These hands can dominate weaker ace hands of your opponents, making aggressive preflop play with them quite profitable.

However, the situation changes sharply when you face a 3-bet after opening with AQo or AJo. In this case, the focus shifts from maximizing profits to minimizing losses. The problem is that a 3-bet often indicates that your opponent has a strong hand that may dominate yours.

Beginner players often make the mistake of calling a 3-bet with these hands, which leads to significant losses over time.

Against tight players, who typically have a narrow 3-bet range, the optimal decision is to simply fold. Continuing to play in such situations can lead to very difficult postflop scenarios.

On the other hand, against loose-aggressive opponents who play with a wide 3-bet range, you might consider a 4-bet bluff.

Here, the role of blockers becomes crucial - AQo and AJo block combinations like AA, AK, and QQ. This significantly reduces the likelihood that your opponent holds one of these hands.

I filtered the scenario where I made an open-raise on the preflop with AQo and AJo:

Thanks to the convenient reports navigation, we can easily move between related situations. Comparing the Action Profit indicators in the “Next Actions” report, we see that when facing a 3-bet, a 4-bet bluff with these hands is more profitable than a call.

JJ and TT

Pocket pairs like JJ and TT are on the borderline between premium and merely strong hands. They are strong enough to confidently open-raise from any position and also play 3-bet both in and out of position.

However, as with AQo and AJo, problems arise for beginners when they face 3-bets from tight, regular opponents. In such situations, inexperienced players often make the mistake of 4-betting with JJ or TT. This is not always the best move and can lead to significant losses.

The main reason why a 4-bet with JJ or TT against a tight regular player can be a mistake is that you further narrow an already strong 3-bet range of your opponent.

If you 4-bet, your opponent is likely to fold many hands against which you initially had a significant advantage, such as pocket pairs 88 and 99, as well as AJs-JTs. As a result, you isolate yourself against a much stronger range, which will mostly consist of premium hands like QQ+ and AK, and this is clearly not what you should be aiming for.

In the previous report in the preflop matrix, instead of AQo and AJo, I selected JJ and TT:

As we can see, the Action Profit of calling a 3-bet with these hands is much higher than the corresponding figure for 4-betting. This is because by calling, you keep strong but dominated hands in your opponent's range.

Low Pocket Pairs (22-66)

Low pocket pairs, such as 22-66, have their own unique preflop strategy. These hands rarely win a pot without improvement, so their primary goal is to hit a set on the flop and win a big pot. The optimal play with such hands is to see the flop cheaply.

If you manage to hit a set, your chances of winning increase dramatically, especially if you’re playing against an aggressive opponent who might bet big with just one pair or a draw. In such cases, low pairs can become very profitable.

However, many players often overplay these hands and call large raises and re-raises on the preflop in hopes of hitting a set. This is a costly and losing strategy. In these scenarios, your implied odds become much worse, and in the long run, you won’t hit a set often enough to justify the preflop call.

We opened with pocket deuces from the Middle Position, an opponent on the Cutoff called, and the player on the Small Blind made a large squeeze.

Many players in this situation automatically call, but this is a mistake. Considering the size of the squeeze and the fact that we won’t be closing the action, the only correct decision is to fold.

Even strong hands can become problematic preflop if the play doesn’t go according to your plan. Proper evaluation of the situation, taking into account your position and the opponents’ ranges, will significantly improve your game and reduce the number of mistakes related to overestimating the strength of your hand and its potential.

Hand2Note 4 is your reliable assistant in analyzing and adjusting your game. In the reports, you can study and compare your strategies in detail, identify the population tendencies, and determine in which situations you most often lose money with troublesome hands.