The Playability of No-Limit Hold'em Hands

We don't really seem to have a basic post anywhere about starting hand playability, so I'm going to cover the basics. Playability helps us to determine the relative value of a hand's worth before the flop so that we know whether or not playing it is going to be a good idea.

Three Ways to Make a Hand

There are basically three ways to make a hand in poker. You can make pair-based hands, flush-based hands or straight-based hands. Along these lines, we have our three ways to measure playability:

• High card value
• Suitedness
• Connectedness

When stacks are shallow, high card value tends to matter more. When stacks get deeper, suitedness and connectedness start to matter more.

Some Different Examples

Suited connectors are good hands with deep stacks because they hold both suitedness and connectedness. The higher the suited connector, the more high card value it holds, and the more valuable it is as a result.

A hand like AK doesn't have as much connectedness as a hand like JT because JT will make more straights. However, the high card value of AK makes it superior to JT.

Something like Q8o or J6o is the one type of hand that new players tend to severely overvalue. These hands have just a very small amount of high card value with no suitedness or connectedness to really mention.

On the other hand, new players also tend to really overvalue something like 43s or T5s. These hands do have suitedness (but in a weak way since they don't make strong flushes), but they have no significant connectedness, and they have no high card value at all.

Playability vs. Equity

Pre-flop equity doesn't really tell you a lot when it comes to the practical playability of the hand. Something like J5o will have a pre-flop equity advantage over something like 76s, but 76s will be much more playable, and you'll be able to get a lot more value out of it in practical play. The moral here is to not use pre-flop equity as a be-all, end-all because it's only the primary consideration when a ton of money is going in pre-flop (like more than one-third of the starting stacks).

the playability of your cards determins how easy it will be to make a good decision postflop. Cards with good playability are AK, suited connectors (ex: 78s, JTs), pairs (ex:22,88, KK). Offsuit hands with big gaps have the worst playability.
for example, 66 is a hand with good playability, on a board like Ad6s2c u easely get your money in, on a board like AcJdQs 66 is an easy fold.
Ackd good playability, u dominate often on a board like AdTs5s but with Ac4d u may have top pair but can easily be dominated and u get in dificult spots
JsTs on AdQs9s u may be behind but u have a strong drow, on 5sKc8d easy fold

the idea is to be able to make easy decisions postflop as often as posible, offcours you'll be in though spots with cards with good playability too but not that often

Those of us who have played for a long time will be doing this automatically and not stopped to think why we play some hands in certain situations.

It is interesting to see it written down like this including the contrast between equity and playability and pointing out the difference between shallow stack high card value and deeper stack suitedconnectness priorites.

I like to play deep stack wide ranges but unfortunately online there isn't much opportunity as blinds tend to increase quite rapidly and an increasing number of 'bingo players' force a more equity based game.

I notice that spoon didn't mention pocket pairs in his post. That's probably because their playability is extremely limited. 66 is a great hand on 6xx flop. But how often will the flop be 6xx? And then how often does villain hit something he'll put plenty of money in with? When you mix these factors together, you'll start to realise that 66 is winning a big pot, hmm maybe once every 25 times. I'm probably being generous there too, assuming villain continues vs our set around 40% of the time. It's probably less often unless you're up against a nit who has a very strong range, or a super fish who'll chase gutshots and middle pairs. You're probably gonna be c/f'ing 80+% of the time, so when you do win a big pot, often you'll be lucky if it's enough to cover the last 8 times you played the hand and lost.

78s is a lot more playable than 66, because 78s can flop a lot more straight draws than 66, a straight with 78 will win bigger pots on average than a straight with 66, 78s can flop flush draws, while the flush value of 66 is minimal, and 78 can flop 2pair hands of value.

Yeah, people sometimes do silly things with small pairs. One example is when a player puts 20% of his stack in pre-flop in a 100 big blind cash game.

thats why there is a ''call 20'' rule with small poket pairs. u call a bet pf with them only if u u and your oponent have enough stack left so you can win atleast 20 times the bet u called PF. so even if u pay a 10bb bet pf with a 100bb stack it is -ev cuz u hit and stack off rarely

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Originally Posted by chemist

I like to play deep stack wide ranges but unfortunately online there isn't much opportunity as blinds tend to increase quite rapidly and an increasing number of 'bingo players' force a more equity based game.

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play cash games. Blinds don't change at all...

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Originally Posted by Eric

Yeah, people sometimes do silly things with small pairs. One example is when a player puts 20% of his stack in pre-flop in a 100 big blind cash game.

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meh, i still like 4-betting 55...

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Originally Posted by daven

play cash games. Blinds don't change at all...

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But cash game ranges are different to deep stack tournament ranges, and a number of other things are different about cash games...

I think the playability of small pairs is quite low.
A flop could easily have 3 over cards, str8 draws, flush draws.
Set over set is not uncommon and very costly.
Easily counterfeited, even 78 catching one pair overtakes the 55/66.
Pre-flop is the only time there is any play for a small pair.

Two more considerations I had today.
- Is Playability different for cash games and tournaments?
- Playability in a multiway pot.
I had J10suited in late position with a 3bb raise and 5 callers.
I fancied that if I hit the royal flush I would know where I was and get action from some AKs, or have an easy fold if it totally bricked.

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Originally Posted by chemist

I had J10suited in late position with a 3bb raise and 5 callers.
I fancied that if I hit the royal flush I would know where I was and get action from some AKs, or have an easy fold if it totally bricked.

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awesome.

lol

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Originally Posted by Xander

thats why there is a ''call 20'' rule with small poket pairs. u call a bet pf with them only if u u and your oponent have enough stack left so you can win atleast 20 times the bet u called PF. so even if u pay a 10bb bet pf with a 100bb stack it is -ev cuz u hit and stack off rarely

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Right, this would mean the call is 5% of the shortest stack. I've seen this rule stretched to 10% such that it is "call 10" with a 10 multiplier.

I Don't use the 20 rule anymore. People are far too loose these days in position. Calling from the blinds is a loosing call almost always. Calling in position only gets you squeezed 3 bet from the blinds at stakes above the nano's because they can read that like a book

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Originally Posted by daven

play cash games. Blinds don't change at all...

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True story. What's up Daven?

online gambling is fun...spend wisely people