You don't like calling A8o from the SB, but you like raising A9o from the button?

I fold this preflop and call ATo. Basically because that's what the preflop starting hand chart in SSHE said to do, and I've never found a good reason not to stick with it as far as offsuit aces go. A9o seems to have a bigger drop off than other one pip differences as you can't make a straight.

I don't understand why you don't stick to brilliant advice like this quoted bit and end up diluting it with all sorts of other unnecessarily inflammatory nonsense.

As someone - maybe even whoever you were arguing with - pointed out, the next six and a half million posts are a minor argument about three hands.

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DalTXColtsFan: the quoted part is the crux of your problem. The range you put your opponents on is too narrow, but even if it were that narrow, you're overestimating the negative effect. The Q does pull QQ ahead of you but it halves the probability QQ exists. If you're willing to b/f (which you should be), you only need to beat 50% of the combos that continue. You will need 2/3 if you plan to b/c (because you lose two when behind and win one when ahead). So list out all the hands that will call or raise, and count how many you will beat.

Aaron, this is a little off topic but just out of curiosity why do you not include 77-AA among hands that dominate A7, and TT-AA among hands that dominate QT? Just curious.

Good question... I've just never thought of that as being "domination." I guess my mind has always thought of that as being specifically a kicker issue, which kind of eliminates the pocket pairs from consideration.

For example, if I had AK and the flop was K85 and I lost to AA, I wouldn't say that my king was "dominated." Nor would I say that my ace was dominated.

That's fair.

I'm probably confusing the terms dominated and crushed, which is just a general term for having a huge equity advantage. IMHO "crushed" is a superset of "dominated". If I have AQ pre and you have AK pre, you have me both dominated and crushed. If I have AT and you have TT, by the literal definition of dominated you don't have me dominated but you definitely have me crushed, as would be the case if you had JJ and I had TT.

Then again maybe I just type too much.

This is exactly right imo.