The Online Poker Player Resource

This is a fairly easy concept that will help beginners avoid dangerous situations in No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

A player has a dominating A player has a dominating hand when their pocket cards are 1) have a better chance of winning than their opponent's hand and 2) remove possible "outs" from their opponent. For example, a classic match up is Ace King (Big Slick) against Ace Queen. AK obviously dominates AQ because of two obvious reasons. AQ first of all is on a very bad draw to win against the AK. If an Ace lands, the AQ would still lose due to the fact that the K kicker for big slick is better. Further more, if a Q lands, with no ace. The AK still has a K out. From this idea, AK dominates anything beneath it such as AQ – AT. From this perspective, the AQ-AT facing a large raise does not look as hot now does it.

Another example of dominated hand situations is AK against AA or KK. Take a moment and think about the concept explained above. In this situation again AK is on a terrible draw. Against the AA, big slick will have to hit its straight or better or land two kings in the community cards. Against the KK, the odds are slightly better, but again, it is up to the AK to draw out and the outs are not in abundance.

Moral of this story here is to avoid falling in love with hands. Instead play the players themselves. For example, let us say you have the AK in your hand and you are involved in a game against a very tight player. All you ever see him play are good cards. Against this opponent you have to be careful because he could very well be holding AA or KK. But against a poor loose player, that you have seen go in with Ace 7 or K9, usually, against this player, you can bet on having him dominated.