How to Play Pocket Aces when playing online poker
Pocket aces are by far the best starting hand in poker, but often
times they are still played very poorly.
This if often because players feel like their aces can’t possibly lose the pot.
This belief that aces can’t lose causes people to slow play their aces, let
their opponents draw out on them and then call a big bet on the river when they
are behind.
This article will tell you how to play your pocket aces when you play online poker so that this doesn’t happen to you.
We will talk about playing your pocket
aces aggressively, when to slow play your aces and when to fold.
The vast majority of the time you should be raising pre-flop with your aces.
A nice 3 times the big blind raise will likely scare off many of the drawing
hands such as suited connectors that are the most dangerous to your aces.
What you want is to eliminate the drawing hands and bring along the strong hands
that you likely have crushed, such as big aces or pocket pairs like (A,K) or
(J,J).
These players will not be folding these hands and will actually likely be
re-raising. To put it into some perspective your aces would be a 93% favourite
against (A,K), an 81% favourite against (J,J) and only a 77% favourite against a
suited connector hand such as (8H,9H).
As you can see you want the other fairly big hands to play the hand with you and
not the drawing hands. The beautiful thing about this is that making a big raise
pre-flop will likely only scare off the hands you want it to, but keep the big
hands that aces crush around for some action.
On the flop you should keep betting no matter what comes. Since you are likely playing against other good starting hands they are likely to call
you even when they are behind.
You should probably bet all the way to the river and hope to be called down by a worse hand.
The only time you should really slow play aces is when you hit a set on the flop.
In my opinion if you are first to act you should be the flop and then slow it
down and hopefully check raise the turn.
You will likely be able to do this because your opponent will think that you
were just trying to represent and ace on the flop and they will likely try to
take the pot from you if you show weakness on the turn.
Pre-flop slow playing is very dangerous as mentioned above.
The only time I can really see it being profitable is if you are in early position at a very loose
and aggressive table.
If this is the case your limp will hopefully get raised and you can re-raise to
make a very big pot before the flop has even been dealt.
Now we need to talk about when you should lay down your aces.
If you do as this article says and play your aces aggressively the decision of
if you should lay down your aces will not come as frequently, but there will
still be times when folding will be the right move.
For example, if there is 4 to a straight or 4 to a flush on the board and your
opponent makes a big reraise on the river you should stop for a second and
replay the hand, taking into consideration the size of bets your opponents would
have had to call to draw out on you and the looseness of your opponent. More
often than not you will realize that your aces could not possible be the best
hand anymore and make the right decision to lay them down.
Remember that even though aces are the best starting hand in
online poker games they can be beat and the key to maximizing your pocket
aces profit is getting maximum value when you are ahead and laying them down
when you are behind.
