"Never going broke" hands

On September 10, 2013, I had this to say about "always going broke" hands:

Certain hands are good enough in the context in which they arise that they're known as "always going broke" hands. This doesn't mean that you'll always go broke with them; not by a long shot! It simply means you'll always be willing to go broke with them, since the odds against that happening are heavily in your favor. When you go broke with an "always going broke" hand, you'll have run into a cooler.

The flip side of "always going broke" hands are "never going broke" hands. There's more than one kind of "never going broke" hand. In all cases, however, the reason you never go broke is because you fold the hand before the flop. The most obvious "never going broke" hand is deuce seven offsuit, affectionately known as a hammer. The least obvious one is pocket aces. Last night, in the one tournament I played, I would have saved myself $100,000 if I'd only recognized that my best play was to fold my aces pre-flop the only time I was dealt them. Why in the world would anyone ever do that? Five people acting before me had gone all in, that's why :-) My chances of winning the pot were just slightly better than 50%, which are not the correct odds.

Actually, come to think of it, I made the correct play after all. The odds were actually super juicy; I was laboring in the fog of innumeracy for a while, but I'm all better now :-) The reason the play is correct is that if I did the same play twice, and won once and lost once, the aggregate result would have been highly profitable. The conclusion is that you should never fold pocket aces pre-flop, ever, no matter the number of opponents you're up against.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings
 
SNG   NLHE    17000  3000       9     8      18    4    14        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9   100      55   12    12   448000

delta: $228,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $20,503,500
2017 balance: $21,309,455
balance: $32,727,285