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On average, how often would a pair of aces win a hand?

I dealt at a fairly large hold-em tournament last weekend, and 4 of 5 times AA was shown the hand lost. The one time it won it was because a 3rd A came up on the river to beat 2 pairs.

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    I don't think the question makes much sense and... Your sample size is way to small!
    – TacticalCoder
    Jan 12, 2012 at 1:07
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    I see AA lose often mostly because players have gotten fixated on their "awesome hand" and missed the flush, straight, etc. possibilities.
    – AlG
    Jan 12, 2012 at 12:39
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    This question needs more specifics to be reasonably answered.
    – Chris Marasti-Georg
    Jan 12, 2012 at 14:42
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    How often AA loses basically depends on how many people play. ANY hand will lose a majority of the time if all ten people play. But AA will win about 30% of the time in a full field. That's THREE TIMES more than the "statistical" 10%, which is why AA is so valuable.
    – Tom Au
    Jan 27, 2012 at 14:04
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    This question is being discussed here.
    – Adam Lear ♦
    Jan 29, 2012 at 4:26

4 Answers 4

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Against a full table of random hands, AA will win under 30% of the time.

Against any individual random hand, AA will win 85% of the time.

Presumably, your tournament featured full tables. That means that if you play the hand in a way that keeps too many opponents in the hand, you are going to lose very frequently. In the long run, it will be slightly less often than you experienced, but not by much.

This is part of the reasoning behind the advice to play AA aggressively in order to narrow the field.

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AA percentage of against one random hand is 85% for win (all-in preflop).

Probability is not distributed symmetric or something, you have 4 of 5 times then you hit this 15% but in long term you will be profitable from that EV+ decisions!

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AA is going to lose a high percentage of the time that it is shown down after the river card has been dealt. This is because the person playing AA is expecting it to win unimproved, meanwhile the opponent has some other hand that has been willing to bet and/or call all the way. The opponent can most likely beat a single pair.

I suspect AA did better as a hand in your tournament than you think. It just won a bunch of small pots that did not make it to the showdown.

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  • I would like to upvote your answer, except for the last line.
    – Chris Marasti-Georg
    Jan 12, 2012 at 13:31
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Here is a great tool for calculating odds/chances for specific hands.www.propokertools.com.

The link sends you directly to a simulation of AA vs all types of hands.

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