Playing AA

T

Tunnelrat

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I think we all can agree that most people find it very difficult to play rockets properly (AA).
Here's a hand history from when I played earlier tonight and I was wondering if you have any thoughts on how I raised and played the hand:

Stacks:
UTG - UTG (T1,426)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 (T1,416)
MP - MP (T1,238)
MP2 - MP2 (T2,011)
CO - CO (T1,460)
BTN - Hero (T1,034)
SB - SB (T3,500)
BB - BB (T1,415)

Preflop: (T77, 8 players) Hero is BTN with A:club: A:spade:
3 folds, MP2 calls T30, CO raises to T60, Hero raises to T150, 3 folds, CO calls T90

Flop: 8:spade: A:heart: 7:heart: (T407, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets T180, 1 fold, Uncalled bet of T180 returned to Hero

Total Pot: T407

Hero wins T407

I've seen many people limp with aces and then min raise and just calls any raise no matter what the board looks like and I've consequently won a few hands vs AA that way by completing either straights, flushes, trips etc. What I still struggle with though is how to maximize value with the hand. So, any thoughts?
 
This Fish Chums

This Fish Chums

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Tripping your pocket aces

When you have pocket Aces and an Ace hits the board, there is one thing you can be almost guaranteed of and that is the other player(s) do not have an Ace in their hand. So regardless of whether the person has a pocket pair, or hit a pair on the flop, if you've hit trip aces they are going to fold to just about anything. In that particular situation, you would need to act as though you were scared of the Ace in the hopes they catch on and do the betting for you.
 
liuouhgkres

liuouhgkres

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In this hand, on the preflop you could raise bigger, because you had one limper before raiser. I think 180-200 would be a better size.

On the flop I wouldn't slowplay with anything here. The problem of slowplaying on these type of boards is that villains can not improve to a hand that will pay you, most of the time they can give you action only with flush and straight. Suppose villain has KJ here. You bet, he folds. Well, you can't do anything about it, because even if you check back he will fold it on the turn. So what I'm trying to say, by checking back you achieve nothing, but giving villain opportunity to suck out. So in short, you played this hand correctly on the flop.
 
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Tunnelrat

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In this hand, on the preflop you could raise bigger, because you had one limper before raiser. I think 180-200 would be a better size.

On the flop I wouldn't slowplay with anything here. The problem of slowplaying on these type of boards is that villains can not improve to a hand that will pay you, most of the time they can give you action only with flush and straight. Suppose villain has KJ here. You bet, he folds. Well, you can't do anything about it, because even if you check back he will fold it on the turn. So what I'm trying to say, by checking back you achieve nothing, but giving villain opportunity to suck out. So in short, you played this hand correctly on the flop.


My thoughts exactly considering there was a heart flush draw on the flop and I think this is where a lot of new players are making a mistake thinking that they have a strong hand, checks back and then gets screwed when the third heart lands on the turn. Thanks for the advice regarding my betsize pre-flop, that's exactly the help I was looking for.

Ps. I did bet less than half post flop which I now think might have been too little considering the threat of a flush draw. If I were in the villains shoes and I had the draw going I would have called that since the pot odds and implied odds are laying me correctly. In this hand he probably didn't have the draw since he folded but instead of taking that risk, maybe it would have been better to bet 2/3 or even a potsized bet?
 
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