It seems that many of you think that the differences between 65s/76s/87s against
AA in some way related to them blocking or dominating the possibilities for
AA to make the
wheel (or
straight-
flush versions thereof). This is actually completely wrong.
Story time: A few months
back I decided to write my
own poker number-crunching programs. I used
AA vs 76s as a
test case while debugging. In my first drafts I didn't bother including the extra lines of code necessary to allow A to play low in a
straight. When I did add the code I at first thought I had got it wrong: the output for
AA vs 76s did not change at all!
But when you think about it it makes perfect sense: there really is no way that
AA will beat 76s with a
straight (or
straight flush) it it could not also beat it with a
pair of aces (or a
flush). If we changed the rules so that you cannot play an A at the low end of a
straight the win/tie/lose probabilities for
AA vs 76s would stay
exactly the same. So the
wheel really is not the issue here.
What's actually
behind the differences in win/tie/lose probabilities between 65s/76s/87s against
AA is that the lower ones are more likely to have their straights counter-feited by board straights, so they are slightly less likely to win. On the other hand it is more likely that there will be some board
straight, so they are more likely to tie.

Originally Posted by
Bailey
which is why TJs would win a few more times against 22 then 9Ts would
There's also good ol'
high card power. JTs is more likely to play its
kicker on a
two pair or quad board, less likely to have boats counter-feited etc.