Domination in Poker

Finding out your dominated in a hand of can very often be a losing proposition. There are a number of ways this can occur. Hand A would dominate hand B if they shared one card and hand B had a lower second card (eg AK against AQ). A higher pair can also dominate a lower pair. Depending on the game, suit domination could come into play however this isn't applicable to many poker games. The term is used far more widely to describe a situation where one hand is statistically the favorite to win against another and one card is shared. A player who has no outs, would be said to be drawing dead.

Looking at some examples - the example we looked at already, and a common one in games like Hold'em - A-K against A-Q. The A-Q would be dominated as if an ace hit the board, both players would have a pair of aces, but the A-K would have a king kicker as opposed to the queen (which is lower). In this instance the A-K would win by virtue of the kicker and would win the hand, assuming the AQ didn't improve.

The term is also used with regards to pocket pairs, for example, a pair of 8's has a pair of 7's dominated as the 7's would need to improve to win the hand. The pair of 8's would win over 80% of the time over a pair of 7's which would win under 20% of the time (split 0.86%).

Here are some common occurrences: .

How do we avoid being dominated? It's not possible to avoid all the time but we can certainly limit the damage when we are. Hand selection goes a long way reduce the amount of times we might be. Staying away from the marginal hands will certainly drive up profitability and reduce the spots where you're left chasing. Also making sure we play only very strong hands from early and when getting involved, we know how to tell that we are behind. For instance, entering a four way pot with A-2 is asking for trouble - even when we're suited (which only adds a very small amount to your chances). When the board reads A-4-8, you may think you're in a good spot. Aces are the most playable cards and equally, the most difficult to fold. The risk here is that you need to hit more than your A to win. Up against a big ace, you're massively behind. When a player calls you down or plays back at you, it leaves you nowhere to go but the fold button.

On the flip side, going in with A-Q and the board reads A-4-8, your pair looks good and will be unlucky to run up against AK. Depending on the position of the raiser and the chip stacks - this could be unavoidable. Judgment here will keep you out of trouble. If you are up against a very aggressive raise and you think you might be behind, fold. The level of betting will be enough to tell you where you are in the hand.