Fascinating. I've seen a few remarkable showdowns between AQ and KK, I never would have guessed the odds were quite so tilted in KK's favour.
I haven't looked at the numbers but I would bet that A2-A5 are better off against KK than AQ.
KK (70.9%) vs AQsuited or AQoffsuit (29.1%)
KK (69.2%) vs A5suited or A5offsuit (30.8%)
The reason why the seemingly inferior hand of A5 does better is that it has about a 4.6% chance of making a straight. (Usually A2345, but conceivably something else) The AQ hand has only about a 2.7% chance of making a straight, because the deck is depleted of Kings, making the desired AKQJT straight hard to catch.
In general, Slice is a wonderful -- and free -- tool for testing various hand outcomes, particularly against likely ranges that an opponent might have.
NOTE: The simulation percentages above will vary slightly each time Slice goes hunting for 100,000 random hands. But the disparity between AQ and A5 generally is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 percentage points.
Interesting visualization!
So much incomplete information combined with luck obscures the best strategy. If it weren't for these traits, it's likely poker would have been relegated to the likes of checkers by now. Solved and not fun for competent players.
The luck keeps people coming back.
Anyway, I can't agree with what you're saying, which is really just an opinion.
So you don't need luck to make it an attractive spectator sport. But I suppose it might be very different from poker if there wasn't luck involved.
usually you're getting it in 65-35 with your strong hands or worse (overpair vs. a strong draw)
(I'm not among the 95%!)
I know it's good when it's good, but it can be easy to read, it splits a lot of the pots because the board goes four paint or whatever, it gets tricked into dumping money with top pair no kicker, etc.
Plenty of guys are flatting two raises OOP and hoping to hit a flop and that's a recipe for dumping chips.
It's a great hand to play anytime 76s would be a great hand.