Let's talk about suited ace + offsuit pair hands

This is a spinoff from another hand discussion (about a hand that is NOT in this class that this thread is about):

and


But unless I'm badly misreading him, in Jeff Hwang's first PLO book, Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy (2008), oriented toward beginners in loose and fairly deep live cash games, he did call this class of hand "speculative":

I take from this:

• He considers all hands with a suited ace and an offsuit pair, even A322, to be playable if you don't have to call big preflop reraises in the circumstances for which he wrote the book: loose, fairly deep games with opponents who will stack off light.
• Of course bigger pairs are better but even if the offsuit pair is 22, and even if there's no straight potential, the hand is still quite playable and belongs to this class
• It's "not necessarily unreasonable" to play (A2)(23), but it doesn't count as part of this class because an offsuit pair (and still suited ace) would make the hand much better.

So what say ye? Are you playing (A3)22 in this sort of live game (or soft online game)? What about (A2)99? or for that matter (A2)(23)? I'm also curious about postflop play examples when you flop something like middle or bottom set plus a BDFD to moderate aggression (say a bet or bet and call), although it's highly situational I'd imagine.

1) p. 62, "...the fact that 77 is the smallest pair that can flop top set without a possible straight on the board is quite relevant."

2) p. 64, "...I think AK23 or A235 or A24K are virtual trash because these hands make too many sucker straights."

3) Also, in the part you quoted, he's clearly stating that when the pair is offsuit from the Ax, that is what qualifies it as "speculative" in his system. He's simply giving people who think otherwise (like you) some benefit of the doubt, and would probably consider something like A877ccc "speculative" because the straight value might offset the redundant club defect, etc.

I know you really want to justify playing these hands, but many of them are only equivalent to 35th percentile holdings that play badly @ most stack depths, that, unless you pick your spots perfectly, will probably end up just delivering break-even results @ best to your bottom-line.

Thanks for the reply. I think this is topic is worth our time because, even though these hands don't come up often, it's important to know whether they're good speculative hands or never worth playing.

I.e. I'm not just being argumentative to win a debate. I care about the truth.

The point isn't that "I want to justify playing these hands." If they're hands that are actually losing me money I'd prefer to justify folding them. I'm just trying to get a conversation started since my reading of Hwang clearly isn't the only one and anyway, Hwang may be wrong.

1)
As we discussed on the other thread, I don't find the 77 thing that relevant. Regardless, for those who think that's an important feature of sevens versus sixes, here is it in context:

2)
Could you help me understand the parallel you're drawing between AK23 etc. and this thread, i.e. (AK)22?

3)
I agree that the offsuitness of the pair is the salient point here. I don't understand what you mean by "simply giving people who think otherwise (like you) some benefit of the doubt."

Something like A877 ccc is pretty trashy as discussed in the other thread. A big leak is that I haven't been downgrading oversuits enough. One fewer out to my flush is bad enough, but 25% fewer combinations of flushes to call me is the bigger problem.



But anyway....

Hwang isn't the final authority of PLO but my reason for citing him is because he's one fairly accomplished player who seems to play hands like this. I'm interested in whether he (i.e., my reading of him) is right in practice. The first sentence of the section states, "A suited Ace with an offsuit pair is speculative but has the very strongest big-pot potential." I guess you think he's assuming that everyone knows 22 doesn't really count as an offsuit pair? Regardless, I take that literally.

Do we absolutely love our A922 or just sort of lukewarm like it on a flop of T42? I would argue we absolutely love it unless we're absolutely certain we're against an overset, because

1) We're ahead of a range of (top two, top set, middle set) so as long as our opponent's behavior is consistent with top two, we're happy to jam.

2) If we somehow know we're on the wrong end of set-under-set, we still have almost 1/3 equity. Obviously we shouldn't be trying to get more money in as a 2:1 dog, but when it comes to calling a little less than pot sized bet all-in, we do get to realize our equity from that point. With significant money behind the usual implied odds considerations come into play (boosted a little bit the immense implied odds of our quads out).

3) When we redraw to a flush, our opponent may chase expecting good implied odds, but unaware she has seven river outs to fill instead of ten.


By my calcs we only get such a flop 450 / 17296 of the time, or 2.6%. But when we do we can jam with abandon until we're absolutely sure we're up against an overset, which helps confuse our opponent when she figures her top two is blocking our value hands.

Also... if your reading is correct and Hwang doesn't REALLY mean that 22 counts as a real pair, where do you draw the line? Are you playing
A966?
A488?

just get the plo preflop matrix. A lot of stuff is situational dependant. I'll play the above hands IP most of the time and also in BB closing action in SRP ofc.

finally some good strat in ssplo!

Are you in the plo matrix discord channel ivanovic???
https://discord.gg/ytrquq9

The second hand is clearly a solid, "speculative" (second tier) structure. The first hand is more of a judgement call, and what I'd call "marginal" (third tier) because of the slight pair defect. Obviously it's very close (and if you see it differently I can't really blame you), but these are structural-indicators that help guide my play/decisions in real time. Though I suppose I draw a blurry line @ 77, it doesn't mean I wouldn't over limp H#1 in CO/BTN, or play it for a small raise in the same positions (CO/BTN) with sufficient IO, etc.

Again, if your game conditions warrants playing hands that are defective/low-tier because of either massive implied FE or massive IO, go for it. I just don't see the point of forcing marginal hands into our range that don't need to be there if conditions/dynamics aren't conducive to it. But that's just me (I'm a very cautious player), and obviously the better you are and the better your position at the table, you can play more & more defective hands within reason (for example, Hwang's second book exemplifies his flexibility/looseness in starting hands when OTB and/or in weak games, etc).

Cheers

If you look at the list of hands that he considers having big pot potential, bottom set isn't one of them. A suited ace plus an offsuit pair has strong big pot potential because it has the the potential to hit his big pot scenarios of flush vs flush, overfull vs underfull and set over set, but not if the pair is too small.

Check out page 70 where he declares A844 to be trash.