How good is a23 with both 2 spades ace and not.
A23 (with or without a two flush) is a massively over-valued hand. Don't get me wrong, it is a good hand and it is almost always playable. And it plays fairly well in both HU and multiway pots. But it is by no means a
great hand. It cannot catch a single card on 4th street that can make it want to go to war/bet the farm. It's high potential is really two gutshots, after all. It requires both a 4 AND a 5 to produce a hand that wants to play a big pot.
is a26 trash? Let's say in a 6 handed game First to act. Then the button.
Yes it is total trash. Can be used to steal the blinds from the BTN, and (perhaps) as an overlimp in LP vs a very weak and passive field. When playing this sort of crappy hand most of the profit comes from stealing the pot on 4th or 5th when you catch a scary board and your opponents catch bad. Or from reading hands well and manipulating opponents into making bad decisions (usually in small/medium pots) e.g. when you make some semi-decent two way hand and get them to pay off when you scoop... or from when you can get them to fold a hand that wins one side of the pot, and thus you manage to scoop a small pot. When UTG A26 is a very clear fold. Some people will routinely play this sort of hand (and worse) from all positions though, which is one reason why the DC games are so good.
how big is a meh trips hand? 999 let's say
Big trips is usually considered to be a premium hand, but really it is not. When short stacked big trips truly is a premium hand. But the deeper the money gets the more of a trap hand it becomes. There are two reasons for this.
1) When you play a hand like (99)9... well, everyone knows what you have. It is tough to make money when your opponents know your cards! Of course, some people play hands like KK(9) or (TcJc)9c. In this case when they turn over a 9 their opponents cannot be completely certain that they have 999. But the problem with this is that playing (KK)9 or (JT)9 type hands is a huge money losing play.
2) The second reason why big trips is a trouble hand (when deep) is a structural one. Every other premium hand (stuff like 3s4s5s etc) GAINS equity down the streets. However, big trips LOSES equity down the streets. On 3rd street it has dominating equity against any hand (except bigger trips ldo), by 4th it is often only 50/50 or sometimes even a small dog, and by 5th street it can sometimes be drawing to maybe get half the pot. And that's not to mention 6th and 7th streets. That's why I do not consider a hand like JJJ a true premium hand unless the money is short - because its equity is not robust at all, it vanishes quickly down the streets. And often it is not even possible to realise this equity - e.g. when an opponent has clearly made a low and is now on a freeroll and the player with JJJ has to either fold, thus failing to realise his equity, or allow himself to be completely freerolled for a large sum of money.
Small trips are, of course, extremely good hands. Partly because of the fact that they block opponents making a small straight. But mainly because of the deception they contain - when you turn over a 5 your opponents cannot automatically know you have trips. 888 and 777 are unique hands and fall into their own category, and there is a special play that you can make which is to do with these 'mid-trip' hands. But I am going to keep that one secret because I think I am the only person that has worked it out... ;)
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