Of course, flopping a flush is an extreme longshot - 118-to-1 - and even those rare times when you do, it's often hard to get action on single-suited boards versus players who necessarily cannot have the nuts.Īll of which is to say, relatively speaking, while having an ace in your hand (even with a poor kicker) might look nice before the flop, there are actually very few flops that are unequivocally good for you with such hands. Meanwhile if your weak aces are suited you're only a little worse than 8-to-1 to flop a flush draw - often a best-case scenario when holding a hand like A ♠ 4 ♠. A straight draw using your ace will necessarily be a gutshot draw, and one using your kicker (e.g., you hold A x 6 x and the flop comes 9 x 8 x 7 x) could be vulnerable to draws to higher straights and/or made straights. You also need an opponent to catch a piece of such a flop in order to get action on such a hand.įlopping any sort of straight draw with weak aces isn't necessarily great, either. But the chances of pairing both of your hole cards are quite slim - 49-to-1. To begin, there just aren't that many favorable flops when you hold weak aces.įlopping two pair is always nice, including when you have weak aces. The Challenge to Flop Well with Weak Aces Whether playing live or online poker, you often encounter players overvaluing weak ace hands, and frequently paying the price as a result.

Non-suited weak aces are obviously less attractive starting hands to play than suited aces, although you shouldn't necessarily get overly excited about being dealt hands like A ♦ 6 ♦ or A ♣ 3 ♣. Sometimes these poker hands are described as 'ace-rag' as well. By 'weak aces' we're referring primarily to A x 9 x through A x 2 x, although you might even include ace-ten in the category. For newer no-limit hold'em players - and those with experience, too - 'weak aces' are among the most trouble-causing starting hands to play.

Texas holdem ace high or low