Well, except those little suited connectors, I thought those were sucker hands considering how often you'd see two pair vs wheel with a lot of ranges that would include A5-A2.

Looking at these stats as limit play makes me soo happy.

You know... I was trying to think back and why I couldn't recall anything about the limit to NL transition.

Now I remember, During the 7-stud to Limit Holdem transition I took such a bad beat on the very first hand I ever played, nut FH vs rivered quads, family capped to the turn.

I refused to play Holde'm for years after that.

top 5% =

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, TT, AK, AQs, AQ, 99

I would say KQs would only be top 9%

Hand rankings are too situition-dependent to do this. In some cases AQo is a much better hand than TT, and in other cases the opposite is true.

If there's one thing we learned from this thread, it's the fact that there are different rankings and we can't really tell if hands like AQ or KQs are top 5%.

That said, I highly doubt you could find 8,7% of hands that have a higher EV than KQs. What would that be? 55+,A9s+,AJo+?

77+, AT+, A9s+ (17 hands, 8 pp, 4 o/s, 5 s) 3.6 + 3.6 + 1.5 = 8.7

my personal chart/number crunching whether you agree or not

KQs is a good example to illustrate how hand domination becomes a larger factor as ranges become tighter.

For example, vs your 9% range our pre-flop equity is ~40% but to understand it better let's break it down:

We are moderately behind or equal to:
JJ-55, AJs-A9s, AJo (68 combos)
dominated by:
QQ+,AQ+(36 combos)
Tie:
KQs(3 combos)

While we are never ahead (except vs bluffs) we still have decent equity against most pairs, and some aces.

As ranges increase, we will be facing more AX or smaller PPs that we have decent equity against, begin including worse value hands such as KJs as well as more bluffing hands. Hands that dominate us will remain fixed and therefore the threat from those will only be watered down as ranges increase.

However, as we tighten up our opponents range, the opposite is true since hands that dominate us are still fixed and become a larger percentage of an opponents range.

For example, if we take those 5% ranges in the OP including all combos for both examples making it a 5.7% range. Our pre-flop equity is now ~34.6% and breaking it down:

99+, AJs+, KQs, AQo

We can see that we are now moderately behind hands:
AJs, JJ-99 (22 combos)
dominated by:
AQ+, QQ+ (36 combos)
tie:
KQs (3 combos)

Notice that the dominating hands remains the same while our races are the only thing that's reduced. Also we lose any portions of a range that could be a bluff where we are actually ahead.

How this effects how we should play KQs:
In the first example, we can see lots of potential when calling as a draw where we rarely wouldn't have the correct odds.

However if we chose to raise, it's at best a semi-bluff but with factors that weigh in heavily against raising. Our FE will only be removing the portions of a range where your hand has some decent equity.

Ranges that will continue to give us action will then be much more dangerous against our hand and we will have to either fold against a re-raise or be called by a dominating range and even hitting our K or Q has significant reverse implied odds from KK+, AK or AQ.

Therefore we should only be calling with higher suited connectors to realize the optimal equity from hitting while bluffing with KQs often only wastes that equity or gets you into more trouble.

The top 40% of Hands are
(22+,A2s+,K4s+,Q6s+,J7s+,T7s+,96s+,86s+,75s+,64s+, 54s,A7o+,A5o-A2o,K9o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o,98o,87o)

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs 2.1
TT, AK, AQs, 99, AQ 5.1
AJs, 88, AJ, 77, ATs 7.5
66, KQs*, AT*, 55*, A9s* 10 (Top 20)

KQ, KJs, A8s, 44, A9 12.8
A7s, A5s, 33, A6s, 22 14.6
A4s, QJs, KTs, KJ, A8 17.3
A3s, A2s, JTs, QTs, T9s 18.9 (Top 40) +8.9%

A7, 98s, J9s, A5, K9s 21.6
Q9s, T8s, 87s, QJ, KT 24.3
97s, J8s, A4, K8s, K7s 26.4
76s, Q8s, A3, T7s, K6s 28.5 (Top 60) +9.6%

JT, 86s, A2, QT, 65s 31.8
K5s, J7s, 96s, Q7s, T9 33.9
Q6s, 75s, K4s, 98, 54s 36%
J9, Q9, K9, 87, 64s 40% (Top 80) +11.5%


You could argue with me, but I can promise you one thing.

The top 16 hands are: 66+,ATs+,AJo+,

The next 4 are: AT, A9s, KQs, 55 (order is up for debate)

for a total of:
(55+,A9s+,KQs,ATo+) - the top 10% of Hands

---------- ---------- ----------

The next 5% of hands are:

A9, A8s, A7s, A5s, KQ, KJs, KTs, QJs, 44, 33, 22 (unordered)

for a total of:
(22+,A7s+,A5s,KTs+,QJs,A9o+,KQo) - the top 15% of Hands

---------- ---------- ----------

++JTs, QTs, A6s, A4s, T9s, A8 KJ, A3s, K9s, A2s, J9s, 98s, T8s

for a total of:
(22+,A2s+,K9s+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,98s,A8o+,KJo+) - top 20%

---------- ---------- ----------

++Q9s, 87s ,QJ, A7, K8s, K7s, J8s, KT, JT
(22+,A2s+,K7s+,Q9s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,87s,A7o+,KTo+,QJ o,JTo) - top 25%

---------- ---------- ----------


++97s, K6s, Q8s, T7s, 76s, A5, QT, 86s, K5s, J7s, 65s, Q7s
(22+,A2s+,K5s+,Q7s+,J7s+,T7s+,97s+,86s+,76s,65s,A7 o+,A5o,KTo+,QTo+,JTo) - top 30%

---------- ---------- ----------

My Range:
(22+,A2s+,K4s+,Q6s+,J7s+,T7s+,96s+,86s+,75s+,64s+, 54s,A7o+,A5o,KTo+,QTo+,JTo) = 31.8%


Leaving T9, A4, A3, K9, J9, 98, A2, Q9, 87 in the top 40% but still TRASH HANDS

(all are fine button hands under favorable circumstances)

Did you read the rest of the discussion?
Full ring or heads up? Deep stack? NL or Limit? Opponent's range?

Why bother reading a post? It's usually just better to come into a more than a year old thread and paste-dump whatever is on your mind based on the subject line.