A2s vs. KQs

Why is A2s ranked as group 6, but KQs is ranked as group 2, on flopturnriver's holdem chart for starting hands? When I ran a simulation of 500,000 trials using Poker Academy, pitting A2s vs. KQ2 in a headsup situation, A2s wins 54-56% of the time (can't remember which). A2s is not a great hand, but it does make the nut flush, and if you flop the pair, you have top pair. My question is not so much, therefore, why it is ranked so low, but why is it ranked so low relative to KQs?

try the simulation again against more than one opponent and you'll see KQs is far superior.

Originally Posted by scunning

Why is A2s ranked as group 6, but KQs is ranked as group 2, on flopturnriver's holdem chart for starting hands? When I ran a simulation of 500,000 trials using Poker Academy, pitting A2s vs. KQ2 in a headsup situation, A2s wins 54-56% of the time (can't remember which). A2s is not a great hand, but it does make the nut flush, and if you flop the pair, you have top pair. My question is not so much, therefore, why it is ranked so low, but why is it ranked so low relative to KQs?

What matters when comparing two hands is not so much how they stand against each other, but more how they stand against everything they are likely to encounter. For instance, 22 is a slight favorite over AKs; but most of us feel better seeing AKs in the hole because we know it holds up better.

So . . . how does KQs fair compared with how A2s fairs?

Here are the stats of the two hands in terms of BBs returned by position over an average of hundreds of thousands of real hands (stats available from PokerRoom, URL below.)

Code:

Hand   SB    BB     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     D
A2s  -0.12 -0.13 -0.01 -0.04  0.06  0.03  0.03 -0.10 -0.00  0.11 
KQs   0.36  0.17  0.40  0.31  0.36  0.31  0.42  0.45  0.40  0.42

As you can see, over a large sampling of hands A2s actually has negative EV in early position and just barely positive EV in later position. KQs, on the other hand, has positive EV in all positions. In late position, it makes an average of almost 1/2 of a BB, which makes it a very nice hand to have.

PokerRoom stats for actually EV:

http://www.pokerroom.com/games/evsta...php?players=10

Originally Posted by scunning

A2s is not a great hand, but it does make the nut flush, and if you flop the pair, you have top pair.

Thinking more about the specifics of the situation, I wanted to point a few other things out:

If an Ace flops, you have top pair, yes. But you certainly have no kicker. Let's face it, people tend to play Ax. Maybe it is not smart, but they do it. So when you flop an Ace and you are looking at 2 opponents, how confidently can you bet it?

And the other topic is flopping two pair. Every now and then you are going to flop an Ace and a 2, for 2 pair. This is certainly a fine hand to be sure. But your pair of twos is very vulnerable to counterfeiting. If the board pairs up, your pair of twos just turned into a worthless kicker.

Consider the situation of you going in with A2s (hearts) while someone else went in with AT (club, spade) and the flop comes up:

Ad, 2s, 8c.

You have two pair and you are certainly ahead of the AT. But if you run the numbers, you will find that 25% of the time the AT will beat you by the river (and 2% of the time the two of you will tie with an Ace/Eight full house). That 25% is brought about by either a T coming on the turn/river or by the board pairing up. So you are a 3:1 favorite in that position.

Compare that to going in with an A9 (hearts) instead and the flop coming up:

Ad, 9s, 8c.

You still have two pair, but your opponent will only beat you at showdown 19% of the time now; making you slightly better than a 4:1 favorite.

That is quite a difference.

Interesting. Yes, you're right. When played into a situation where there are two callers, and one of the callers has KQs, A2s ties with KQs - both win 37.7% of the time. When I increase the number of players from 3 to 4, or 5, or 6, A2s fares worse and worse and KQs fares better and better. Thanks for the clarification. I'm not sure if I entirely see the intuition behind the differentials, though, so I will need to reread your posts closely I think in order to better absorb your explanation, but I see now that there is a difference.

Thinking of it as the number of callers may cause problems. When it's heads up, there's less possible things that the one caller you may be holding. When there are 10 people, even if you only get one caller, chances are a lot better that his hand will consistantly dominate you than that his hand will consistently dominate KQ. From the 200,000,000 random hands calculated in a simulation, KQs won heads up nearly 67% of the time (just in line with AJs, as a matter of fact), while A2s only won 56% of the time. That's a difference of over 10% against the field. Make sense?

- Jeffrey

I sorta touched on it above, but not completely. KQs doesn't derive it's placement as better than A2s because of the times that it can or can't beat A2s. KQs derives it's placement because played against any random hand, KQs holds a MUCH better chance at winning than A2s. Part of this can be illustrated as follows:
Hands that contain an ace where an ace pairs: both of these lose
Hands that do not contain an ace where nothing pairs: both of these win
Hands that where one card pairs for each hand: KQs wins (assuming it's not an against aces) every time; A2s only wins if the ace is the card that pairs
More straight possibilities (slightly) exist with KQs.

Basically, there are number of hands that KQs will stand up against and the frequency with which it will do so outclass A2s by a lot.

Sorry if that seemed scattered...lots of thoughts + reasons I can give...not sure how to logically organize them or how much you want to hear.

- Jeffrey

Same deal with 27o. Heads up it is a big favorite over 23o, but 27o is still the worst hand in a multi-way pot.

Yeah, what they said. Hands are valued differently depending on the situation. Just something interesting

33 v AK... 33 wins

33 vs JTs... JTs wins

JTs v AK... AK wins

So you obviously can't go with what's better HU.

It's not the strength of the hand or the probabilities of winning. What matters is what you can bet on. (para from Ted Forrest, I think)

A2s can't bet on an ace on the flop due to kicker troubles, and it can't bet on a 2 on the flop, also due to kicker troubles, and should be folded to virtually any raise in these situations. You really can only bet on flushes here. KQs can bet on either a K, a Q, or a straight draw or a flush draw, and can get odds on almost any bet on a straight flush draw.

As Daniel N. said, "The only time you get action on these hands is when you're beat."

Are we talking about starting hands? preflop wise?

A2s is better preflop than KQ. If no hand pairs then that means Ace high wins. KQ might look superior but A2 is better preflop starting hand.