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Besides small pairs, one of the hands most commonly misplaced in poker often seems to be the suited ace. There’s something about seeing those matched suits together with the big dog of all cards that causing dreams of flushing and making the monster flush that takes down a huge pot, but in reality, this kind of thinking is often just another poker pipe dream.

One of the main way poker players get in trouble playing ace x suited for a raise, is that they then get trapped into a bigger pot when they hit the four flush on the flop and go chasing after the fifth suited card, putting money in on a hand that is (a) against the odds to happen and (b) probably not going to get paid off much when it does.

The odds of hitting a flush with four to it on the flop are roughly 1 in 3, a stat that does down further when you miss on the turn and still want to see the river. Playing against any pair makes you the dog, and so it’s better, unless you are in a gambling mood, to avoid this prospect completely except when it is cheap (ie: limping) to see the flop, or if you can otherwise take control of the board by taking the lead, thus negating the need to make your hand in the first place.

The other drawback here is that even when you do make your flush, unless your opponent happens to also be drawing, it’s dead on easy for even novice players to see that the flush is out there. Thus, a lot of the times made flushes don’t get paid a lot unless the money goes in before the flush card comes, which as noted before, means you are putting in money from behind.

Again, the poker advice: don’t draw against the odds, make you opponent be the one to do that, is solid, winning poker advice.

It’s easy to be tempted to call raises with that a/x suited, but in the long run, if you can avoid doing so, it will likely end up saving you more money than it brings in.

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