HAND OF THE WEEK
Pocket Aces
Your position will determine your action pre-flop. Of course the dream situation is that you look down at aces in the big blind and there’s a raise, a re-raise, a re-raise, a call, blah blah, before it even gets to you and all you have to do is push all in and you’re called by KK, QQ, and JJ. However, we aren’t playing online and cold decks like this are very rare.
I’m a huge believer in limping in when getting aces under the gun or early position. It gives the aggressive players a chance to do all the dirty work for you. Of course you take the chance that no one will raise and many people will call to see the flop, but if it’s a scary board all you’ve lost was the price of the blind if you feel as if you’re beat. Your ultimate goal other than getting all the money in pre-flop is to go against 1 to 2 players max when holding a big pair. This is ideal because you want to be against strong hands like AK or AQ, because not only are you a dominating favorite, but if they hit top pair on a rainbow flop, its money in the bank for you.
Now if you’re in middle to late position, you have the benefit of seeing all the action before you. I strongly recommend re-raising any raise coming your way, because a raise in early position usually means a strong hand, and they will for sure call, or of course they could also get out of hand and pull out more chips for a re-raise. You must also raise the pot, and raise it strong if there are a lot of limpers in order to get trash hands, and lower quality hands out of the way. The only time I would smooth call with aces is if I’ve limped in early position and someone else’s raise has cleared the field and we’ll be head’s up on the flop.
“Oh you mean you don’t automatically push all-In pre-flop?!”
“No sir, sorry but this isn’t ESPN. Not all hands in poker are AK vs 66”
Most of the time I would encourage you to bet your aces hard, and to bet on every street to protect your hand, but the question of when is a good time to slow play always comes up. There are a few key situations when I would recommend slow playing aces:
- when you’ve flopped an absolute ball breaker like top set on a rainbow board (3 different suits and no straight draws) or a boat.
- when it comes like 8 high on a rainbow board with no straight draws.
In a situation like this you may be up against 1010 or JJ and you’ll be able to make strong bets and get called down to the end as long as an over card doesn’t come out to scare your opponent off.
Look, aces don’t win all the time. You must be able to study the quality of the flop, turn, and river and you’ll be able to make the correct distinction between betting hard to protect your hand, or to suck em in when the board is spread out.
I hope this helps you understand how to play aces for the next time you get em. Remember to protect your hand because it’s always better to win a small pot than to lose a big one. Position is the most important factor in poker so use it to determine when to bet big or when to fall back.