Dominated Hands
(Or, "Hurts so good, come on baby make it hurt so good")
Regardless of your position on S&M (and I mean Sklansky and Malmuth--what did you think I meant?), you do not want to play a dominated hand. A dominated hand is a hand that, even if you hit it on the flop you are very likely still losing AND your chances to improve are three outs or less. For example:
With this hand even if you hit a King or a Four you are very likely beaten--either by a King with a higher kicker or a higher pair.
A more recognizable version of this can be seen here:
Ever played this hand? Ever played it in early position? Middle? Late? If you are like the majority of hold 'em players you play this hand a lot and you lose with it a lot. Quick quiz: if you play this hand what would the ideal (reasonable) flop be assuming no pairs on the board and no flop containing both A and 7?
If you said anything with an A in it you failed the quiz. You are almost certainly beaten by any flop that contains an A, and even if you do have the sole ace you will not get much action on a board that contains an A when no one else has one. Even flopping two pair with this hand is not great since you can easily be beaten by a better two pair should an overcard to a seven fall. On the other hand this IS the sort of hand that can get you stuck calling on the turn and river when you shouldn't.
Dominated hands leak chips.
For extra credit: how does the following hand stack up against the Ad 7c above?
Slightly better because it makes up for its lack of "power" with the seven with the ability for both cards to participate in a straight, BUT any straight that Ace-Low can participate in is not the nut straight. For example if the flop is 2 3 5 to give your A 4 a wheel it is still possible for a 4 6 to beat you,
Even when a dominated ace makes a straight it is a dominated straight!
(ok, ok, if the board contains K Q J T then you can finally make a non-dominated straight and chop it with the other three aces...)
