Standard 6-max cash game, except that in every hand the BB is always dealt the ace of hearts face up (his other card is face down).

You and the other 5 players start the game with 100bbs.

Whats your basic stategy here*, especially when it's folded around to you on the button?

*You can't just find a better game. This is the only game in town and you can't pay the rent unless you beat it!

Tight-ish, I guess.

Aces are devalued in this game unless they have rather high kickers, so I think Kings are worth more than usual. KQ seems an attractive hand compared to AJ.

Pairs are much as normal I guess. Hearts are devalued.

Pre-flop should be quieter than normal as it is harder to rep stuff and BB is often calling.

Isn't it, in some ways, advantageous for the pf raiser if bb calls? Can bb play profitably post flop, generally, when both still reasonably deep?

I know the thought put into this is all for fun but this is just a waste of time over analyzing this unreal situation haha.

BB should fold pretty much every time unless he has AA

Dude, you've just dissed my whole life. So I suppose the half-hour I spent discussing with my mate Lee about whether we would rather be the conjoined twin with the bad breath, or be the one who had to put up with it, was a waste of time as well?

So the button should raise any two?

Top pair/second pair go way up in value.

I think we are underestimating the fact that we know one of our opponent's holecards (albeit it is an ace).

Agree. How do you feel about BBs ability to play post flop? Maybe BB is better just jamming AA and some combinations of AK to a raise? Unless original raiser has an ace, he will always think that AA is likely. If he does have an unpaired ace, then he is never better than level, or marginally ahead with AK suited.

Maybe BB could balance that value shoving range, to a small degree, by adding AhTh as a bluff?

The other 5 players will pick up AA much less often, obviously.

By the way, I'm not suggeting this game as yet another longed for variation. Just interested in the dynamics created by a dumb rule.

Yeah, I was thinking more in limit terms in my post, but you actually specified starting quite deep (and presumably NL), which will make things a lot harder for BB.

Might be a more interesting game in limit.

It would be better live if, rather than using the ace of hearts card, a real heart, taken that morning from a sacrificial horse, was placed on the table and passed around by the players as each hand took place.

While the felt would suffer from a certain amount of staining and the heart would collect a fair amount of lint as the game progressed, it would quieten those who claim that poker has become a soul-less math bee, which has lost touch with it's Wild West roots.

Having one card face up from the start of the hand is an absolutely massive, crippling disadvantage when it comes to postflop play.

But having the Ah automatically means you have a premium preflop shoving hand about 14% of the time (AA or AK) which means you can rep the premium preflop shoving hand with AQ and maybe AJ (since we should never call having one card face up), mixing AQ into the shoving range when appropriate and expanding the 3bet bluff range wider when appropriate.

So your fold to steal would be about 68 - 76%, which is lower than usual, and your "has premium" range would be almost 14%, which is more than 5x as often as usual, and that range is AA over 40% of the time, so you're holding AA about... 15x as often as you normally would with an ATC range

So calling is a disaster, but being guaranteed the ace is a huge benefit to the preflop playability of your hand.

The way I'm pretty sure it'd work out is, people can steal vs you less, because you're playing back at them much more. And when you do play back, it's always as a 3bet, and when you 3bet, the stealer is under far greater pressure to fold, because it's so much easier for you to have premium. So balancing the steal range, so that you're not folding to 3bet too often to enable the BB to 3bet every hand, would be very very difficult without seriously tightening up.

So my approach in this really crazy weird hypothetical, would be to limp frequently to collect that enormous postflop advantage provided by the fact that they have one card face up, and in doing so completely avoid the danger of unlocking their 3bet range.

I think limping becomes a very attractive option in this hypothetical. Limping would be the new stealing.

And having an A or K in your hand, the removal effect of that is extremely pronounced here, far more than usual, since without one of the 7 aces or kings left in the deck, the BB is fairly toothless.

First; don't deal him the Ah leave the Ah in front on him, maybe use his would-be second card as the burn card... idk. Figuring out how to deal that game is a bit of a problem itself...

The game is a battle of the other 5 wanting to play post flop and the bb wanting to play before and on the flop. I would think that if NEVER open-raising on the button is wrong it can't be that wrong. The main advantage would be to "pre" squeeze the sb, because the bb will be re-raising very often. BTW; how much do you hate life if you're in the sb?

You should want to play as deep as possible post flop, so I wouldn't raise. You can wait for a non A flop w/KK, QQ etc. (assuming the bb will try to get all-in on the flop often) or set a trap w/AA (knowing he needs a miracle). Speculative hands will have the highest possible implied odds and will be cheapest to forfeit to a raise (or possible to call a raise, where if bb 3-bet a raise you would be forced to fold 100% of the time).

As the bb you are a favorite the vast majority of the time pre flop and you have a monster post flop disadvantage. Add to the fact you can represent a monster easily (and will have a neg implied odds monster a relatively high % of time) and are out of possition to all but one player making large (perhaps all-in?) over raises very often. Making a standard raise would present too many post flop problems. Just like potting w/Aces in PLO, except you opponents can actually see half your hand.

You would probably want to make it about 15-20 bb pre-flop with aces a majority of the time and other hands in proportion to the amount of limps you face. Shoving the flop often would be a good strategy. You would have to mix in traps and delayed bluffs, obviously, however.

I would suspect an implied collusion dynamic would develop with everyone limping all playable hands to trap or get a cheap flop. One player limping a lot of hands would encourage more raises, but many players limping would discourage the bb raising with weaker kickers.

An early position player may want to raise to buy position and isolate, however. A reraise would seem unlikely and a reliable source of information from another player. So it wouldn't be a horrible investment assuming the ep is going with the hand vs bb a majority of the time.

Fun fact: In the inner-most circle of hell Hitler is watching this game commercial free with Norman Chad commentating and the face up ace is a... SPADE!!

One thing nobody has yet mentioned is the sb strategy in this situation. I wonder if, as the whole scenario revolves around having to play oop with a depolarized range, it would make more sense if the sb was given the Ah rather than the bb?

That would also create interesting confrontations between the button and the bb, when the sb has folded - even to a button limp.