B
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Rock Star
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Phoenix Wright
Legend
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I'm not sure I entirely understand the question, but I don't follow rules like this. I like to think I can play any two cards if I believe the situation is right for me to do so (but usually I'll have a lot more of a selection than VPIP 100%
)Just by how the math of the game works, there is actually a big drop ("big" meaning a small percentage, but critical in practical results) between AJs and ATs. In fact, even AJ or AT could be easy folds preflop with a tighter table image and/or deeper stacks. Doyle Brunson famously expressed his dislike for AQ and said he would never play it (pretty sure he had some unlucky results with AQ). Perhaps partly joking, but there is a little truth behind it I'm sure.
Nevertheless, a hand as strong as AQ is going to be played by me usually - I'd want a reason not to play it.
Think of it from the perspective of how many cards beat what instead of "paint" or "face cards." There are 13 different card values and 4 different suits (52 card deck). Here are the 13 and ranked:
A-1st
K-2nd
Q-3rd
J-4th
T-5th
9-6th
8-7th
7-8th
6-9th
5-10th
4-11th
3-12th
2-13th
Listed this way, we can see that AJ has the Jack at 4th. Another way of saying this is that AK and AQ dominate AJ (as do AA, KK, QQ, JJ).
AT is even worse than AJ because of the same cards crushing it, but now also AJ and TT way ahead of AT.
This is a problem because the cards ahead of AT are played by most players and therefore likely to be in their ranges. Even a TAG is likely to keep AK in their range etc.
The reason for the big statistical drop from AJ to AT has to do with the number of hand combinations which beat AT.