AA Ain't What it Use to Be, More then Ever You have to Play Them Right

Sooooooooooooooooo..... You look down and there they are; AA as your starting hand. According to the odds you will win with AA 80% to 90% of the time depending on how many players are in the hand. Well, I'm here to say pocket Aces owe me some wins! Last week I got beat 5 times holding pocket AA to; a Flush, 2 pair, trips, a straight and a full house.

I could and should have avoided some of these beats. How each of us play AA pre-flop is important. More often then not the idea to "slow play" them becomes tempting. The reason I'm writing this is to remind us all that while AA is a great starting hand you still have to play it correctly. It certainly CAN and WILL be beaten from time to time, particularly these days when so many players stay in with Flush and straight draws. AA is hard to lay down, but a great lay down that keep you from the rail is far better than winning a few hundred chips if it helps you get to a final table!

LOL to All!


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Quote:

particularly these days when so many players stay in with Flush and straight draws.

Honestly, I don t mind players who drawing without odds against me. Big problem with AA is the perception of it. Loosing with AA always seems to be a bad beat while it is absolutely normal to loose pots with them once in while.

On top of that and your post is absolutely spot on, a lot of player "freak out" when they hold AA and play them very poorly and then complain that they were outdraw or something.

Thanks for the reminder

akamma wrote:

On top of that and your post is absolutely spot on, a lot of player "freak out" when they hold AA and play them very poorly and then complain that they were outdraw or something.

Yeah yeah, I'm such a whiner.

Quote:

you will win with AA 80% to 90% of the time depending on how many players are in the hand.

quite wrong, AA will win 80% of the time against ONE random hand. add more hands, it will only go down.

When I hear somebody whine about "always" loosing with AA, the first thing I ask them is how did you play it wrong? Yeah, I know you are going to get sucked out on 20% of the time but I'd say that 80% of the time someone is complaining about "always" loosing with AA, it is because they are not good poker players.

Something that has happened to me pretty often is utg or utg+1 has QQ or JJ and just limps thinking to slow play. 5 or 6 more limp right along with mediocre hands suited connectors small pairs ect. and your sitting on the button with AA.
I usually raise in this spot 7 or 8 BB's or shove depending on my chip stack relative to the others at the table. now the QQ or JJ usually calls and then 1 or 2 others call with with middle pair or small suited connector because the pot is laying 3 or 4 to one and in a lot of cases they wont be more than 3/1 dawg . And my AA is against 3 or 4 other hands. Not good for the Aces.
Is there anything wrong with my thinking and play here, or should I just limp and play careful post flop?

never limp AA preflop, as a rule.

of course in poker there are no absolutes.

AA is always dangerous cards.
The cards are dealt only one pair of eyes looking at.
best not to do the rest.
thought likely to continue after seeing flopu and I think you need to.
flop is very cruel to draw appropriate

Why do I feel like I'm reading a haiku?

Is that what it is?
A haiku about Aces?
Show me the money!

Thanks, Gravity.

Rockbottom87 wrote:

Quote: you will win with AA 80% to 90% of the time depending on how many players are in the hand. quite wrong, AA will win 80% of the time against ONE random hand. add more hands, it will only go down.

so if you dont like losing with aces be aggressive preflop and get it to a heads up situation or take it down preflop, once you get it to heads up you should win more than 80% if you dont give cheap draws w/ too small bets, if they call bets without proper drawing odds you come out ahead in the long run per the theory of poker and the law of large numbers, even though you will lose to a certain small numbers of draws that do hit.
And of course there no advantage to be giving them proper draw odds since by definition it does do allow them to make a mistake.

And lastly AA is like a serious longtime girlfriend. it aint easy but sometimes you gotta let them go, you cant get married to every girlfriend and expect to keep all your money