The definition of holding a 'rag ace' or an 'ace-rag' is being dealt an ace with another card lower than a ten. So the following hands can be regarded as 'rag aces': A9 A8 A7 A6 A5 A4 A3 A2.

1. Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Game
2. Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Tournaments
3. Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Rules

Five consecutive cards of the same suit. Five sequential cards in the same suit. The highest type of Straight Flush is a Royal Flush, and the lowest is an A-2-3-4-5 hand (if Aces are low or high/low). This type of hand is referred to as a 'Steel Wheel'. Other Straight Flushes with special names include.

It could be argued the range, in which the term rag ace incorporates, is smaller or greater than the one shown. For example some would say that a rag ace ranges from A2 to A6, but in my opinion the best way to determine an ace rag is in the range A2 to A9.

In a nutshell, a rag ace is an ace with a low kicker.

How to play aces with low kickers.

So that's enough of the background information, now how should they be played? It is typical for a beginner player to overestimate the strength of their hand just because they hold an ace, and this can lead them into trouble. This answer to the question on how to play aces with low kickers is as follows...

Under high rules, an ace can rank either high (as in A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 10♥, an ace-high straight flush) or low (as in 5♦ 4♦ 3♦ 2♦ A♦, a five-high straight flush), but cannot simultaneously rank both high and low (so Q♣ K♣ A♣ 2♣ 3♣ is an ace-high flush). When an Ace is part of a wheel straight A-2-3-4-5, it’s a 5-high straight instead of an Ace-high straight, simply because the Ace is being used as a lowest card of the straight in this instance. Common Aces in Poker Variants Granted, most of you reading this will likely be geared to play No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

More often than not you should be folding rag aces. This may come as no surprise to any intermediate and experienced players as they have read this article or other articles like this, and learnt from mistakes they have made at the table.

You should always look to fold rag aces, as they will rarely win big pots and are likely to lose you a fair amount of money if you are out-kicked.

If you play rag aces, you are primarily looking for one thing to happen: making top pair with your kicker on the flop. This is because this gives you the best opportunity of having the best hand and to make money. If you pair your ace and get action from another player it is likely that they have your ace out-kicked, especially if they raised before the flop.

There may be a slight chance that your opponent is playing a rag ace worse than yours, but you can never be sure of this and it is never ideal to be putting money into a pot when you do not know where you stand.

Tips for playing rag aces.

1] If you pair your ace and bet out, your opponent will only be calling/raising with the better ace leaving you unsure of where you stand, or they will fold an obvious worse hand – winning a small pot. Furthermore if you were to hold A5 on a board of AJ8, any action you would get would either result in you losing the pot or calling to win half. In the best-case scenario of your opponent holding an ace-rag, it is likely to be a split pot by the river.

2] If you make top pair with your kicker you have a better chance of making more money from another player that has hit top pair with a worse kicker. However this situation is unlikely and again with one pair you can only hope to be winning a small pot.

3] You make two pair on the flop against someone with an ace but with a better kicker. This will usually be a profitable situation for you. However it is not common and it would be a losing play attempting to make two-pair with a rag ace against an opponent with a better kicker. It simply won't happen enough to make the call profitable.

Rag aces do not win big pots.

As highlighted in bold, the key idea to remember with rag aces is that they are not designed to win big pots, and if you happen to make that two pair, it is actually going to be a losing play in the long run. Just think about it. If a player raises you with his AQ and you call with you A6 to see a flop, who do you think will be coming out on top the majority of the time? Hopefully this has drilled into you that you should get away from rag aces as often as you can – save yourself some money at the table.

When can you play rag aces?

In spite of what has been mentioned above, there are certain situations that warrant playing ace-rag in the hole (remember that no answers in poker are that straight forward). When playing short-handed poker you can loosen up your starting hand requirements. When there are 5 people or less at the table it is acceptable to play any ace with good table position.

Rag aces can be played more profitably at short-handed tables, but you still have to be careful. Rag aces are generally best avoided if you are still developing a solid, winning strategy.

The likelihood that your opponents will be holding any aces has diminished significantly enough to change rag aces from losers to winners. The rule that you may only win small pots still applies, but the size of these pots will be slightly increased short-handed, as players will have a tendency to call bets with middle pairs.

Furthermore, an ace also acts as a plan B for clearing up uncontested pots with the high card. But be sure to let paired aces go if you come up against too much action after the flop.

Blind play with rag aces.

In addition rag aces are better suited for blind play (play within the blinds and button) for the reasons mentioned above, as once again there will only be a small number of players left in the hand. It is likely that you have the best hand so the optimum play is to raise with any ace if it is folded around to you on the cut-off or on the button.

If your opponent does call than you can evaluate how to play the flop with greater accuracy as you have position on your opponent. When in the small blind you should once again raise and hope to take the big blind. If your opponent does call then a continuation bet on the flop is likely to take the pot down. When on the big blind with an ace rag you should raise if you feel you can take the pot otherwise it is best to check, as you will be out of position for the hand.

When you do play rag aces, you should keep in mind two key words: Isolate and Determine.

You should realize that rag aces are not the kind of hand that you want to be playing in a multi-way pot. Therefore you will want to isolate any possible opponents by raising to keep the action heads-up if possible. If you do get the call off one opponent, you will then need to determine the strength of your opponent's hand and if they does indeed hold the better ace than you.

There are no tips or rules to know whether or not he does; you simply have to have a good understanding of your opponent and the way they play.

Rag aces evaluation.

If you are unsure of how to play rag aces, then you should fold them. If you are relatively new to poker then rag aces are either going to win you small pots or lose you big ones. This type of hand is simply not designed to win big pots and that does not help with the main aim of poker - making money.

This risk you are taking to win a small pot is outweighed by the risk you are taking of losing a big one. There are some situations in which you can profitably play ace-rags, but the profitability margin is not great enough to concern yourself with these sorts of plays, especially if you are unsure of what you are doing.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

Comments

If you’re a beginning poker player and want to learn not only
which hands beat which hands, but how to read the board and
possible hands while playing Texas holdem, you’ve found the best
page available to help.

While it’s important to understand how each hand ranks in
comparison to others hands it’s equally important to understand
how to read the board of community cards, how to read possible
draws, and how to read what hands your opponents may be holding.
Each of these subjects is covered below.

New players should make sure to read each section in order
below. But if you already know how to play poker and are
familiar with the rank of poker hands you can skip to the
sections following the hand rankings section. But it’s never a
bad idea to refresh your knowledge and it only takes a couple
minutes to read the extra sections.

Texas Holdem Hand Rankings

The following list is ranked from highest five card hand to
lowest five card hand. Start reading from the top down and the
first hand you find that a player holds is the winning hand. See
how to break ties below the hand rankings.

Remember that you always make your best five card hand out of
the two hole cards and five community cards. You can use both of
your hole cards and three community cards, one hole card and
four community cards, or just the five community cards, but you
always use exactly five cards to make a hand.

• Royal Flush

  A royal flush consists of an ace, king,
  queen, jack, and ten of all the same suit. In other words,
  an ace high straight that’s also a flush is a royal flush.
  An example of a royal flush is the ace of clubs, king of
  clubs, queen of clubs, jack of clubs, and ten of clubs.

• Straight Flush

  A straight flush is a straight and a
  flush that isn’t ace high. Straight flushes can be anywhere
  from king high down to five high. Two examples of straight
  flushes are king of spades, queen of spades, jack of spades,
  ten of spades, and nine of spades or the five of hearts,
  four of hearts, three of hearts, two of hearts, and ace of
  hearts. In the case of the second example, the ace is
  counted as a one, or the lowest card in the deck. So if a
  straight using an ace as a one is in a tie the ace is always
  used as a low card for tie purposes, not high.

• Four of a Kind

  A four of a kind includes all four
  cards of the same rank in the deck. The fifth card doesn’t
  matter. An example of four of a kind is eight of spades,
  eight of hearts, eight of clubs, and eight of diamonds.

• Full House

  A full house consists of three of a kind
  and two of a kind. An example of a full house is the jack of
  clubs, jack of diamonds, jack of spades, seven of hearts,
  and seven of spades.

• Flush

  A flush has all five cards the same suit. The
  rank of the cards doesn’t matter as long as all five cards
  are the same suit. Any five hearts is a flush or any five
  clubs, etc.

• Straight

  A straight has five cards in sequential
  order. The suits don’t matter in a straight.

• Three of a Kind

  Three of a kind consists of three
  cards of the same rank. Example of three of a kind hands
  include a hand with three jacks or a hand with three sevens.
  Other names for three of a kind include trips or a set. When
  the word set is used it usually means a hand with a pocket
  pair and one matching card on the board making three of a
  kind.

• Two Pair

  Two pair consists of two different pairs of
  matching ranks. Two sixes and two eights is an example of a
  two pair hand.

• One Pair

  One pair is simply two cards of the same
  rank. Two nines or two aces are examples of a pair.

• High Card

  A high card hand is one that doesn’t have
  any of the hands listed above. The highest ranked card is
  designated as the high card for the hand. If the highest
  card you have is a king you have a king high hand.

How to Break Ties

When two or more hands are tied for the highest hand one of
two things must happen. The first thing is you must decide if
one hand is actually higher than the other / s based on a few
simple rules that we cover next.

Moving from the top of the hand rankings above down, in a
Texas holdem game it’s impossible for more than one player to
have a royal flush unless the royal flush has all five cards on
the board. If all five cards on the board are used in this way
by every player remaining in the hand, all of the players tie.

It’s possible for two players to have straight flushes. In
the case of two or more straight flushes, straights, or flushes,
the player with the highest card in her straight or flush has
the highest hand. If one player has a queen high straight and
another has a nine high straight, the player with the queen high
straight wins.

In the event of two or more players holding a full house, the
player with the highest three of a kind has the better hand. If
two or more players hold two pair hands, the player with the
highest pair wins. If each player has the same high pair the
player with the highest second pair wins.

When two or more players have the same high hand of a pair,
or three of a kind, or something similar, the rest of each
player’s hand is considered.

Two players each have a pair of aces for their high hand.
Player A has A A K J 5 and player B has A A J 7 4. Player A wins
the hand because her next highest card after the tied pair of
aces is a king and player B only has a jack. In the event the
third card is the same you then compare the fourth card.

If two or more hands have the exact same five card hand then
the pot is split between the winning hands. The suits all have
the same rank as far as value is concerned. Hearts is not worth
more or less than spades, etc.

How to Read the Board

When you start playing Texas holdem it’s important to learn
how to read the board not only to determine what you hold but
also what your opponent could possibly have. This is important
because you don’t want to be caught by surprise when you think
you have the best hand and commit a large amount of money to the
pot when another player actually has a better hand.

You start the hand with the ace of clubs and the jack of
clubs and the flop has the queen of clubs, nine of clubs, and
ace of diamonds. This looks like a good flop for you because you
have a pair of aces and a chance to hit an ace high flush. The
turn is the two of clubs, completing the best possible flush.
The river is the queen of hearts.

While you still have the best possible flush, when the board
paired on the river it means you no longer have the best
possible hand. Whenever the board pairs it means there’s a
possibility that one of your opponents may have a full house.

In the example we just used a player starting the hand with
an ace and queen would have hit the full house on the river. The
same is true for a player starting with pocket nines.

Most of the time in Texas holdem you’ll still have the best
hand with a flush in these situations, but you always need to
know what the best possible hand is before deciding how much to
risk in the pot.

Other hands to watch out for include possible straights and
boards that have a high likelihood of having two pair.

Good starting hands often have two high cards, so any flop
that holds two or three high cards has a chance to create pairs
or straight possibilities for your opponents who hold high card
starting hands.

Even flops with middle and smaller cards may offer straight
possibilities, especially in unraised pots. In an unraised pot
the blinds get to see the flop for free or a half bet, so even
on a flop with lower cards they may have hit two pair or a
straight draw.

One of the best ways to practice reading the board is by
dealing out hands at home and figuring out every possible hand.
Then start dealing pocket cards for multiple players and play
each one independently in your mind. This way you see many
different pocket cards in combination with the board cards.

If you’re still struggling to see all of the possibilities
and hands ask a more experienced player to work with you as you
practice to point out things you may be missing.

How to Read Draws

Reading draws kind of goes hand in hand with the last section
about reading the board, but you also need to learn how to
factor in the chances of hitting your draws.

If you have four cards to a straight after the turn there’s
only a few cards left in the deck that can complete your
straight. If your straight draw is open ended, meaning you can
hit a card on either end to complete it, you have eight cards
left in the deck that can help you.

A hand of seven, eight, nine, ten will complete with any six
or jack. You’ve seen your two hole cards and four board cards,
so the deck still has 46 unseen cards. Eight of these cards
complete your straight and 38 of them don’t. So the odds of you
completing your straight are 38 to 8. This reduces to 4.75 to 1.

In more simple terms this means that on average if you played
the exact same situation 46 times you’d complete your straight
eight times and miss it 38 times.

Of course the actual deck of remaining cards doesn’t have 46
cards because the other players have cards, but you haven’t seen
them so you have to include them as unseen cards in the deck for
your calculations.

You use the odds in combination with your possible draws to
determine if it’s profitable to bet, raise, check, or fold.

This can become somewhat complicated when you have multiple
ways to make a hand. Usually each possible draw has a different
chance of winning if you hit it. In the example above you stand
a good chance of winning the hand when you hit your straight,
but if you miss your straight but pair one of your cards on the
river you’ll have a pair, but the odds of it being good are
slim.

Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Game

Learn how to read all of your possible draws and how to
determine the odds of each draw being successful and winning if
you hit it. This will help you win more often playing Texas
holdem.

Reading Your Opponents Possible Hands

Continuing the discussion from the last two sections, once
you learn all there is to know about your possible hands and
draws and the odds you can start using the same things to
determine what hands your opponents can possibly hold and their
chance of completing hands that may be able to beat your hand.

You’ll need to learn what hands your opponents like to play
and which ones they don’t play if you want to get the best
possible reads, but even if you don’t know anything about your
opponents you can still make educated guesses based on the
board, what you hold, and the betting action throughout the
hand.

Remember in an earlier section we mentioned that many good
starting hands have high cards. Other popular starting hands
include pocket pairs and suited hands including an ace. As the
level of competition improves the starting hand possibilities
tend to change. Staring hands with an ace and suited small card
are more likely at the lower levels than at the higher levels of
competition.

Look at the list of good starting hands included in the next
section and then compare them with the current board. Which
hands fit with the way your opponent is playing the hand? Don’t
forget that not every player will follow the guidelines listed
below.

Some players, especially at the lower levels, play any ace or
any hand with an ace and any card the same suit as the ace.

At lower levels you’ll often see hands where a player with an
ace and a small off card hit two pair and beat a hand with a
pair of aces and a large second hole card that doesn’t pair up.
This may seem like playing better starting hands doesn’t pay
off, but in the long run the player starting with ace queen is
going to win more hands than the player starting with ace three.

It’s also important to always consider the players in the
blinds. If they get in for free or half a bet they could have
any two cards. Even for a small raise many players won’t fold
anything from the blinds because they’re already invested in the
pot.

Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Tournaments

You need to consider a wide range of things when trying to
guess what your opponents hold, but with practice you can start
narrowing down their possible hands quickly. As you gain more
experience you can get to the point where you’ll often have a
good idea where your opponents stand in a hand. You’ll still be
surprised sometimes because players do all kinds of crazy things
at the holdem table, but the more you know the better you’ll be
in the long run.

Another big part of reading your opponent’s possible hands is
watching them play, even when you aren’t in the hand, and
remembering everything they do. If they have a big pocket pair
do they always raise before the flop? Do they ever bet into a
draw or do they always check and call? Thinking about these
questions and learning the answers to them and others will make
your play more profitable over time.

Best Starting Hands

Here’s a list of the best starting hands in Texas holdem. The
list is roughly listed from best to worst, but hand values
change somewhat based on the level of competition, the makeup of
the game, and your ability to play well after the flop.

Not all of these hands can be played from every position or
in every game. But if a hand isn’t listed here you should avoid
playing it in any Texas holdem game.

Two card hands followed by a small “s” means suited. For
example, K Q s means a king and queen of the same suit.

As you become a long term profitable Texas Holdem player
you’ll find situations where you may be able to play a few hands
profitably that aren’t on the list. You may be able to play 10 9
s or 4 4 from late position profitably in a few games, but don’t
even think about trying it until you’re already a profitable
player.

On the other hand you’ll find many games where hands like K J
and below on the list can’t be played profitably. As a rule of
thumb, while you’re learning how to be a better player, it’s
always better to be tight than loose. So only play the best
hands while learning how to play.

You also need to understand how position relative to the
dealer button changes the value of starting hands and what you
can and can’t play for a profit. We have an entire page
dedicated to position so you should study it to make sure you
completely understand how to use it.

Conclusion

Ace Low Straight Texas Holdem Rules

Even experienced Texas holdem players make mistakes when it
comes to reading the board of community cards and trying to
determine what their opponents hold. Once you learn what beats
what, you still have a great deal to learn if you want to be a
winning player.

Start by making sure you know the ranking of all of the
possible hands, and then learn how to read the board. Use your
hole cards with the board to determine not only the best hand
you can form, but also the best hand your opponents could
possibly have.

The next step is learning the odds of you hitting your hands
and using this information to determine the best way to play the
rest of the hand. Finally, you can start using all of the things
you’ve learned to start making educated guesses about what your
opponents have and are drawing to.

Winning Texas holdem players use all of these things and more
on every hand to give themselves the best chance to win. But
don’t panic if this seems like a lot to take in at once. You
don’t have to learn it all in one sitting. Bookmark or print out
this page and go over it often while you’re learning to be a
better player.