L
luckytokenz
Rock Star
Silver Level
Playing Ace Rag in the long run will cost you. Ace Rag is bad due to its
weakness against and Ace with a higher kicker. If you catch an ace, you
could be easily beaten by another ace and by calling it could cost you
a lot of money. Now, every once and a while you might get two pair,
but even with those winings, you wouldn't be able to get back all the money
you lost. Hell a lot of the times I even fold it in late position, but there
are other times, like when the blinds are folded to you, and your on the
button, that you could raise while feeling secure about your hand.
Here's my full strategy on how to play Ace-rag. I'm not gonna say my way is right way to play because everyone including myself have flaws with playing hole cards in certain way. BUt here it goes, which helps me a lot in casinos.
Early position: I only limp in with any Ace-rag suited. I toss any Ace-X offsuits. I raise with A-J offsuits and above because this clears many people and also scares people away since they assume I have premium hand if I raised from early position.
Middle position: I raise with Ace-rag suited. I limp with Ace-X offsuits if I have very healthy chip stack. If I'm chip leader, I raise with Ace-rag once in a while.
Late position: if Everyone folded and action is to me, I raise with Ace-rag and above if I'm chip leader. if I am middle, I usually fold because it's not worth it. I usually face situations where I raise and then short-stack reraises all in and I end up getting priced to call. So it's not a good idea to raise when you're middle. if I'm short-stack and I'm in late position and everyone folded, I push all in because there's high chance that button, small/big blinds have rags. If someone pushed or raised from early/middle position, I fold Ace-X offsuits.
Ace rags are horrible because when you're called or when you're facing an opponent, you're very likely 2-1 underdog at best because you're either facing Ace with higher kicker or pocket pair.