We all know the routine: the best hands are AA, KK, QQ, AKs...
These are the hands that win the most often, but what if the metric we are interested in is not "how often you win", but the overall cash performance of the hands? Are these top hands the most productive, money-wise?
Let's take AA. Great hand to take small pots. You raise hard/all-in early. People fold and you pick up a few blinds. Once every 221 hands, you get to take 2-4 BB.
Not bad, but every once in a while, you get called by a couple opponents and the flop looks nasty. Opponents 3-bet. You re-raise. The board brings 4 spades and you don't have any. You stick to your guns and you lose your stack, or you wise up and you fold, losing a lot of chips in the process.
Win small, lose big, as the saying goes.
Of course, it would vary from player to player, but overall, I figure that some hands just play so well that they would beat the ROI of QQ+ by a wide margin for most players... except I don't which ones they are.
What are the starting hands that routinely take down the biggest pots and cause the least losses?