I'm wondering about the playability of off-suited aces. Let's define this as <A8o.
Where does the playability of these off-suited aces come from?

Few considerations:

- nut 4-card flush is extremely rare scenario and no implied odds
- can make very weak flush with other card but it's only a bluff catcher
- Reverse implied odds on Ax
- Can usually get one street bluff on A-high board, but the action stops afterwards.
- Trips over trips is rare but can happen. A7o > A2o in this regards
- gut-shots have good implied odds + you have overcard

The problems:

- Often end up having weak A-high missed, so just xf give up?
- If we flop one pair, how much action is Ax going to give us? Don't want to defend weak pair for too long. In this instance I may prefer A3o, since A7 usually has pair on very drawy boards that get cbet less often.
- A2o gut-shot sucks and it's hard to improve. Same for A3o on 54x.
- These hands are very poor candidates for turn probe bet, and basically have to be played face up missed.

The reasons why I'm asking this.
I'm playing on high rake sites that no longer offer good rakeback. I want to keep my defending range tight due to rake.
Villains also cbet a lot these days which can reduce playability of off-suited hands.
I may have ended up overfolding off-suited aces a result.
I think this may be a mistake, since equity wise they are good cards and flopping an ace is big thing in poker. RIO are a thing though.
Against weaker regs facing double barrel on A-hi board is not a good scenario

How wide should we call off-suited aces in the following scenarios?

- BB vs BTN 2.5x
- HU vs 2.5x
- HU vs 3x
- BB vs SB 3x

I think BB vs SB 2.5x I would defend any Ace. Vs 3x I have folded A2o-A3o sometimes but is this a mistake? Have to keep in mind that some villains only OR 38% which has us completely dominated. Weak A-high is not the best bluffing hand post-flop and it's hard to play.
Pokersnowie has tight calling range against BB vs BTN 3x and only defends A8o+. Because of rake, I think we could play A9o+, but snowie had very tight open range BTN.
In HU I play rather tight with these hands.
I don't remember how Pokersnowie played off-suited aces in Heads up. Vs 3x I'm usually defending A8o+, and not always A5o, A4o.

If I fold off-suited aces, it drops big amount of combos from my defending range. Also interested if someone could provide Snowies HU strategy for these hands
Any thoughts in this regards?

Our defense frequencies depend on the opening ranges of our opponent, and to other extent spr and postflop leaks as well.


As a general rule something like a7o is probably the bottom of a calling range in bb vs btn facing a 2.5x open
Something like a5o may also be called at some frequency too. In a 0 rake environment they may all be defended and be about breakeven.

All ax should be defended as either a call or raise in bb vs sb facing an rfi of 45%+

Offsuit aces are overrated. 85s > A6o

What about 87o compared to A6o though?

I think A3o is a better defend than A6o, the bigger kicker is worthless IMO. Also I can understand why you wouldn’t want to show your defending range but for this discussion it sounds like seeing your defending range would be good. You might not have A6o but what other hands do you have instead? Not everyone agrees on hand strength preflop.

Good to hear feedback!

I agree with your thoughts.
The thing with A3o though, is that if you flop Ax top pair, then you have a lockdown situation.
87o most likely misses, makes a weak pair or gut-shot. All of those hands are hard to get to showdown.
A3o can also XC weak pair knowing that it can make best 2p. Vs very good players it's hard to get stacks in with 87 2p, because Kx Qx on the board would likely give our opponent better 2p.

In todays solver driven meta it's very common to cbet all best A-highs and bluff a lot. I think people greatly overvalue hands like 87o in terms of their overall playability.

I think in order to play such hands profitably, you would need to be a very skilled post-flop player (and not talking GTO)

Yeah A3 can flop better SDV and stronger hands for sure.

The strength of 87o is the board coverage and the ability to flop gutshot+ hands more frequently than A6o.

You also don’t have to just go into SDV mode with an 8 or 7 pair, these hands can block sets in an all in bluff scenario. We can’t do this with TPWK when we have A3o because we are often dominated by the calling range. But when we have 87 on A72 there shouldn’t be many 7s or 8s that villain bet calls with. So 87 is a better bluff.