This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
One of the easiest ways to spot a poker fish at your table is to pay attention to which hands they choose to play preflop.
If you see a player constantly reaching showdown with dubious holdings, it’s a clear sign they’re probably a recreational poker player.
This is especially the case if they happen to play the 4 hands on this list.
If you see someone playing these 4 hands, you can confidenty mark them as a fish right away.
Because no good poker player will ever play the following 4 hands.
Let’s get right into it.
Fishy Poker Hand #1: Jack-Four suited (J♥4♥)
Jack-Four suited and similar hands fall into the so-called suited junk category.
Other examples are K♦️4♦️ or Q♠️5♠️
By the way, throughout this article I will use "s" for suited hands like J♥️4♥️ and "o" for off-suit hands like J♥️4♠️
Anyways, a lot of amateur poker player play virtually all suited hands for the chance of making a flush post flop.
But this “strategy” is likely to cost you a lot of money over the long run. That’s because it’s very hard to actually make a flush in no-limit hold’em.
The chance of flopping a flush with a hand like J4s is less than 1%!
You have a better chance of flopping a flush draw, but that is also quite unlikely.
The chance of flopping a flush draw with J4s is only 11%.
And even then, you have to rely on hitting one of your outs on future streets. The same is true for other suited hands, as well.
So playing a hand just because it’s suited is not a good idea.
And even if you manage to make a flush against the odds, you’re still not totally in the clear.
You can still potentially lose if your opponent has a stronger flush with any suited Ace, King, or Queen of the same suit.
That’s a huge number of combos to potentially worry about. Aside from the remote ability to make a mediocre flush, J4s has terrible playability post flop.
It can’t make a straight, so it has very limited nuts potential.
And if you don’t manage to flop a flush or a flush draw, the only thing you can hope for is to make a very weak pair of Jacks.
With a hand like J4s, you will only make top pair 8% of the time, and even then, you have a lot of overcards and a crappy kicker to contend with.
So can J4s ever be played profitably?
For example, is it ok to blind steal with J4s on the button?
The answer is theoretically yes, but if you do decide to blind steal, it’s probably better to do so with hands that have a slightly better post flop playability.
Hands like JTo or J8s may fit the bill.
These are not great hands, but can still connect with the flop better than a totally trashy hand like J4, and they have a better kicker, which gives them a much better fighting chance.
Check out my video from last week on the only poker hands you should be playing.
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Fishy Poker Hand #2: Ace-Two offsuit (A♦2♣)
A lot of amateur poker players play just about any Ace for the prospect of making a top pair post flop.
Playing so-called “rag Aces” is hardly a profitable long term strategy for a few reasons.
First of all, even if you make a top pair with your weak Ax hands, you often won’t be able to win a huge pot with them.
A one pair hand is rarely strong enough to play for a huge pot with.
This means you won’t be able to get 3 streets of value with your top pair, since your opponents won’t be inclined to pay you off unless they happen to have a stronger hand.
For example, let’s say you are dealt A♦2♣ and the board runout looks like this:
A♥J♣8♠7♥4♣
Are you really going to be comfortable playing for a huge pot with only a top pair and a weak kicker to boot?
The answer is probably no.
This brings us to the second major problem with playing rag Aces, and that is the weak kicker.
A kicker is the card in your hand that doesn’t help you make a certain hand combination, but can determine the winner if both players have the same hand.
For example, if both you and your opponent have a pair of Aces, the player with the stronger kicker wins the hand.
And since one pair is the most common hand combination you’ll make in no-limit hold’em, a kicker often determines if you win or lose the hand.
When you play A2o in particular, your hand will be dominated by all the other Ax hands.
You always want your hand to dominate your opponents, instead of the other way around.
Apart from the potential of making a mediocre top pair, A2o doesn’t really have much going for it in terms of its post flop playability.
Since it’s an offsuit hand, you can’t make a flush easily, and your chances of making a straight aren’t great, either.
The chance of flopping a straight with A2o is only 0.33%.
And even then, you can still potentially lose to a stronger straight if your opponent holds 65.
Playing A2o can be especially costly if you flat call with it preflop.
Calling too much preflop is one of the 5 dreadful amateur poker mistakes, most people still make. Especially when you do it with easily dominated hands like A2o.
If you flat call preflop with A2o, you will have to fold to a continuation bet every time you miss the flop (which will happen most of the time).
And if you hit a top pair, you can still lose if your opponent has an Ace with a stronger kicker.
Bottom line: A2o is a trash hand with very limited upside potential.
So does that mean you should avoid playing it altogether?
The answer is probably yes, but an exception could be made if you’re trying to steal the blinds when playing on the button.
When you blind steal, you aren’t trying to play for a huge pot post flop, but rather just take down the pot right away if your opponents fold too much to stealing attempts.
When you play on the button, you can often get away with playing a very wide range.
This can include even very marginal holdings like A2o.
Fishy Poker Example Hand #1
Cash Game, Effective Stack Size: 100 BB
You are dealt A♦2♣ on the BU (button).
You: ???
You should open-raise to 2.5 BB.
In this spot, you can actually get away with playing a marginal hand like A2o.
That's because you aren't looking to play for a big pot post flop, but you're trying to take down the pot right away preflop.
A lot of players at the lower stakes won't defend their blinds with the right frequency, so they will often just fold to your stealing attempts.
However, if the players in the blinds are more aggressive and likely to fight back against stealing attempts, you should just make a tight fold instead, and only blind steal with the stronger parts of your range.
It's also worth mentioning that having a Two in your hand makes blind stealing slightly worse, because a Two blocks a part of your opponent's folding range.
This is why it's better to blind steal with a hand like A6o or A7o, instead.
Check out my blind stealing cheat sheet to learn how to pick up a lot of easy money preflop.
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Fishy Poker Hand #3: Queen-Ten Offsuit (Q♠T♥)
Queen-Ten offsuit is not necessarily totally unplayable, but a lot of recreational poker players tend to misplay it.
Put more precisely, they often overvalue and overplay this hand, which loses them money over the long run.
The problem with a hand like Queen-Ten offsuit is that it’s not really as strong as it seems.
It has very limited nuts potential, which means that you can’t win a huge pot with it very often.
One-gapper and two-gapper hands will make a straight significantly less often than connected hands.
Queen-Ten offsuit will only flop a straight 1% of the time.
The chance of flopping a straight draw is a lot better, but it’s still far from likely.
QTo will only flop an open ended straight draw and an inside straight draw 7% and 15% of the time, respectively.
Check out my other article on the 4 straight draw mistakes fish always make.
Another problem with QTo is that it will often be dominated by stronger hands.
This is especially the case in 3-bet pots, where players will usually play very tight and strong ranges.
In most low stakes poker games, players tend to 3-bet with only very strong hands.
For example, let’s say that a player 3-bets around top 5% of all starting hands.
Their range will probably include pocket Tens or stronger, Ace-Queen, Ace-King, and maybe King-Queen suited.
This is considered quite tight, but we’ll use this range as an example.
Against this range, QTo has only 26% equity (aka your odds to win!).
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can expect to win the pot 26% of the time.
You can only fully realize your equity if you take your hand to showdown every time.
And this simply won’t be the case in practice, as you’ll often have to fold if you face multiple bets from your opponent.
Fishy Poker Example Hand #2
You are dealt Q♠️T♥️ in the MP (middle position). You open-raise to 2.5 BB.
Villain 3-bets to 10 BB from the SB (small blind).
You: ???
You should fold.
Calling in a spot like this is unlikely to be unprofitable over the long run, especially if the villain is only 3-betting a very strong range.
Assuming the villain is 3-betting around 7% of their hands in this spot, your hand has roughly 31% equity.
Even when you’re playing in position post flop, it’s going to be very hard to realize your equity in 3-bet pots, as you’ll often have to fold to c-bets from your opponent if you miss the flop.
Of course, if you have some sort of a read on your opponent, or if you have a skill edge post flop, calling may be a reasonable option.
But usually, it’s better to err on the side of caution, and not get involved in spots where your hand can be easily dominated.
For example, let’s say you see the following flop:
Q♦6♣2♥
Even though you flopped top pair, you still can’t be too thrilled about your hand, as you still have a mediocre kicker to worry about.
You also have to dodge Aces and Kings on future streets, which make your hand relatively weaker.
So like other hands on this list QTo has only limited upside potential, but can cost you a lot if you overplay it.
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Fishy Poker Hand #4: Five-Two Suited (5♦2♦)
Five-Two suited is another suited junk hand that you should avoid playing at all costs.
Apart from the potential of making a very weak flush, there’s absolutely nothing redeeming about this hand.
There’s also a very remote possibility of making a straight, but that certainly doesn’t justify playing a hand like this.
The chance of flopping a straight with 52s is only 0.64%.
I have a personal gripe with this hand since I’ve lost quite a few big pots because of it.
And every time it happened, the players playing this hand were among the worst poker players I’ve ever seen.
Their justification for playing a hand like this would either be something along the lines of:
“You never know what the flop brings”,
Or even worse:
“It’s my lucky hand”.
As tilt-inducing as this may be, I drew some comfort in the fact that I’m obviously playing in a very soft, and very profitable game.
While it is true that any hand can smash the flop and potentially net you a big pot, the odds are not going to be in your favour if you keep playing junk hands hoping to get lucky.
While you may hit an occasional two pair or trips and catch your opponent off guard, it’s hardly a profitable long term strategy.
You’re going to miss the flop 2 out of 3 times on average, but if you play a lot of trashy hands, you’re going to miss the flop even more often than that.
And since you have to pay money every time to see the flop, the more flops you see, the more money you’ll lose over the long run.
And occasionally getting lucky with and making two pair with 52s is not going to make up for all the misses.
It goes without saying I didn’t try to explain any of this to my fishy friends at the table.
So are there situations where you can actually play 52s profitably?
I’d say the answer is no, unless you want to intentionally tilt your opponent.
But do so at your own peril, because poker gods are a vengeful lot.
If you want to know which hands you should actually play in all the table positions, check out my first book, Crushing the Microstakes.
4 Hands Only Fishy Bad Players Play - Summary
You don’t necessarily need to study a ton of advanced poker strategy to achieve decent results in this game (although it certainly won’t hurt).
If you want to get ahead of the majority of the players you play against, all you have to do is be very selective with hands you choose to play preflop.
This means not playing trash hands that will usually be more trouble than they’re worth.
To sum up, here are 4 poker hands you should avoid playing:
1. J♥️4♥️ suited
Jack-Four suited falls into the “suited junk” category.
A hand like this can often get you in trouble because you’re not drawing to the strongest possible flush.
Apart from the potential of making a mediocre flush, J4s has very little going for it in terms of post flop playability, so you should ditch this hand altogether.
2. A♦️2♣️ offsuit
Playing so-called “rag Aces” can often cost you a big pot due to the kicker problems.
Ace-Two offsuit can be dominated by all the other Ax hands, so it’s usually not worth playing at all.
Ace-Two suited is a much better option, since it has better post flop playability due to its great nuts potential.
3. Q♠️T♥️ offsuit
Unlike other entries on this list, Queen-Ten offsuit is not totally unplayable, but it can get you in a lot of trouble if you overplay it.
Queen-Ten offsuit is one of the weakest broadway hands, so it doesn’t perform well in 3-bet pots.
It also has a lot weaker nuts potential compared to some of the stronger broadways, so make sure to play it with caution.
4. 5♦️2♦️ suited
All the other hands in this article can be played in certain spots, but 52s irredeemable garbage, so avoid playing it altogether.
While this hand can theoretically make both a straight and a flush, the chance of it happening is so remote it’s not even worth considering.
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This article was written by Fran Ferlan
Poker player, writer and coach
Specializing in live and online cash games
For coaching enquiries, contact Fran at fran.redline@gmail.com
Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $2000+ per month in small/mid stakes games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
