In poker which hand is better pocket 3 or ace and queen?

Answer 1

Any pair beats a non-pair. But if the flop is i.e Axx or Qxx then AQ would be winning unless another 3 drops on later streets.

(edit)

Before the flop the pair of threes win because a pair is better than a high card.

But the true odds are different depending on the suits of the cards.....it can be anywhere from 50.06% to 53.18% that the threes win with a .49-.54 percent change of a tie.

In the best scenario if you had AQ suited and your opponent had 33 of different suits than you youd be 49.44 percent to win and .54 percent to tie...in reality it is virtually a coin flip. Its pretty much luck and either hand is fine. In the long run you would want threes every time, and you,d make .02% profit, but that amount of hands isn't possible and the profit is negligible.

In closing.....technically 33 is a little better than AQ.....but in reality they are equally as likely to win after the cards are all out.

This of course doesn't include fold equity, along with many other factors.

To put it into simple terms, If you have AQ and you know your opponent has 33.....

If the flop is K108.....the opponent will fold to a bet (generally....there is a ton that goes into if he would really fold or not and why but that's advanced concepts) and you win the hand......almost 100% of the time a card higher than a three will come out on the board (and if the board is 22223 you win with a high card anyways and he has to fold) which means 100% of the time an "over card" will be out on the board......which makes it hard for the opponent to call with an under pair......

if the question was AQ or 99 or something the math is pretty similar but it changes the second part of my analysis a little.

So in the AQ to 33 scenario.....33 is statistically better, but I would take AQ 10 times out of 10.