Limp/Shove AA - Worst move in poker?

itsmebobd

itsmebobd

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I was at a tournament recently blinds 200-400, Im sitting on 20k roughly. Im in the cutoff and have been able to steal blinds from the 2 older players in them, done in twice in about 7 rounds. Player in middle position who has been aggressive but skill level was unknown at the time. He limps in with AA, its folded to me and I look down at QQ. I pot the pot to $1350, SB instafolds, BB thinks for a minute and folds, he shoves all in for 8k. I've seen this from players like him and to me it signals a medium pair, such as 88-10 10, possibly even JJ. I tank for a minute and call. Now I know that an 8k call on queens is questionable, Im not really sure what my profit in this situation is, really the only hands to have me dominated are AA/KK and im flipping with AK. Anything else I have dominated pretty well. He then proceeded to win the pot and act like he was a pro, and made some comment that sorta pissed me off. I responded with "Limp/Shove aces is the worst move in poker"... is my assesment correct? This was about 80 mins into a live tourney
 
rock0001

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i dont think limp shoving aces is a great strategy, however it isnt the worst type of play. when you are slowplaying aces there is a big risk, that many players limp into the hand making aces much less valuable. and the other possibility is that when a player raises, they have 2 clear choices. The first one is to shove all in, or 3 bet, which in my opinion it looks really easy to read at least in most cases that either he slowplays aces or maybe kings, or he is 3 bet light, pretennding he has a monster. in most cases the limp shove is not a good unless there are lots of callers after the raise, because its pretty obvious to read that type of play. on the other hand, if he just calls your raise, then reading aces preflop would be very difficult for you as you would expect him to call with such a great hand. that would be in most cases the best way to slowplay aces, to limp and then just call another raises to pretend you didnt have a very strong hand
 
Zorba

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It sounds like he got the response he wanted and that was to get someone else to bet out, better luck next time..
 
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cotta777

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I think every action requires the right situation.

limping with aces in early position can be useful for example if one player raises and another calls you've now got the opportunity to 4-bet Isolate one guy or if your fortunate enough they both hand like AK or medium pairs etc.

Again if you limp in early position and are facing a raise and a big 3-bet its a good spot to 4-bet shove.

Limping with aces however with the intention of slow playing a limped pot is horrific. You dont only have to beat 3/4 players (6-8 cards) but the odds of doing this are pretty low.
 
okeedokalee

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QQ is my biggest loser hand, but I understand why you called given the dudes previous.
Somehow no matter how I play pocket queens, I lose.You are looking at a tight re-raise range AA, KK, AK, given my luck with QQ I would fold here.
I also limp aces 10% of the time and raise with medium suited connectors 10% to keep my range wide, and would shove a raise as your opponent did holding aces, that is why I limp 10% AA to begin with.
 
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loafes

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As always the play can be good or bad depending on the specific table dynamics. Although to be honest I think that limp shoving in tournaments is soo often AA/KK that if you have a middle strength type hand the villain looses a lot of value if stacks are deepish
 
Arjonius

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How good or bad limping AA is depends on the situation. You're looking to get raised, so the more likely that is to happen at your table, the more viable it is to limp. Otoh, the more your table is prone to multi-way limped pots, the more you should simply open-raise.
 
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rumsey182

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limp shoving AA for any stack is likely +EV but no where near optimal
 
etherghost

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No offence, but he did get you to call for maximum profit. Hence, it can not be assessed as the worst move. In fact it was the best move in this circumstance. I guess he knew that he could extract the max out of you by this move.
 
cardriverx

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No offence, but he did get you to call for maximum profit. Hence, it can not be assessed as the worst move. In fact it was the best move in this circumstance. I guess he knew that he could extract the max out of you by this move.

It doesn't matter what he did realistically. It's AA v QQ in a tournament. It's going all in if he raises the AA as well.
 
etherghost

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It doesn't matter what he did realistically. It's AA v QQ in a tournament. It's going all in if he raises the AA as well.

Not really. You are assuming this. Top players can sniff out AA and have the ability to fold even QQ preflop. He was sneaky and that's what poker is about. If you play by the book you aren't going to make much profit.
 
MasterOfDisaster

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Just a standard situation where money goes in most of the time anyways preflop.
 
MasterOfDisaster

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You play a 20BB stack effectively, so I don't think you can get away here often.

If he openraises, you 3bet preflop to get it in.
If he limps you obvious raise to get it in.
If he shoves you call his shove or overshove.
 
el_magiciann

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Limping AA is not good decision at all. I only limp my AA when I am LP late at the tournament when blinds are pretty solid and with limping my hand before D,SB OR BB they can push for folding my limp. The other time i can limp ACES is when i am well over average stack at tourney.
 
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Not really. You are assuming this. Top players can sniff out AA and have the ability to fold even QQ preflop. He was sneaky and that's what poker is about. If you play by the book you aren't going to make much profit.

if your a nit yes but against decent villains people rarely fold QQ pre

i very much doubt anyone would fold QQ to be for a nearly infinite amount of BB pre honestly
 
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well sometimes one can slowroll aces and sometims work like the situation described above, so i don´t think one should play aces always the same time but gauging the table and try to the maximum value, the best thing is try to isolate against one player or maybe two and if the table is too passive maybe one raise could make everybody else fold so sometims you slowplay the aces
 
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not a great play....but sometimes it works...just gotta accept the risks...they say play your premium hands aggro and try and get max value which usually works....sometimes limping or slowplaying AA isn't a a bad thing but there are indeed risks involved. Honestly...It seems like even if he raised AA there preflop the $ was going in still...so it doesn't really matter...you were losing regardless
 
PoKeRFoRNiA

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I limp with AA or KK from time to time. How is this anywhere near close to worst play? Lot of times, it's the best play. I've done it lots of times. If you know someone's going to shove or raise, then limp shoving is the best thing to do. By doing this, you're getting DEAD MONEY from people who called original raiser's bet but yet, can't afford to call your bet, hence forcing them to give up the bet that they put out.

Limping with Aces/Kings is only horrible if you plan to win it by a showdown using the flop. Limping with Aces is usually done when they smell a raise coming pre-flop, so that they can reshove back all-in and take down the dead money. As "obviously" it may look for limp/shoving, sometimes, the pot is so juicy and the fact that people can't let go of their dead money, they will call you wide.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-game-hand-analysis-50/200-nlhe-full-ring-qq-utg-230299
 
dealio96

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I would never limp AA in middle position unless I know there is a tempted shortstack behind me. For some odd reasoning, every time i'm utg, I limp AA. I don't know what it is but it seems to work out well the majority of times and I get that raise that I wanted preflop. The bad thing about playing AA this way is that you're pretty much telling them what you have.
 
PoKeRFoRNiA

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Look at limp/shove move with KK here. Perfectly played by Liv Boeree. Very nicely played, but bad results. She squeezed out the UTG's money really well. Bcz of the wrong results, it ended up working towards idiot's favor.

 
ccocco

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I've seen him lose several times against AA lower value cards, poker is not said nothing until they are 5 cards on the table ..
 
PoKeRFoRNiA

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Except that it is NOT a "limp/shove move" :p

Well, it's a call/shove. They both have similar objectives. They're calling the bet in hopes of someone behind them to raise/reraise so that they can jam it in and pick up the dead money and isolate it to heads-up. This is nowhere near "worst play" but yet, one of best plays in poker and one of best trapping techniques. Even in casinos, when I did this and I've taken lot of dead money and win the big pot, I love it when someone says "i knew he had Aces"(after they call off someone's raise and then forfeit their bet to me). Makes me LOL.

Lot of people here say that it's obvious I will have Aces or Kings if I do that but once their money is placed up and the pot is bloated up and juicy, people get emotional and can't tend to let go of their bet, hence, calling you with wide range of hands and hoping you're just doing it with low/mid pocket pair or any Ace.
 
Karozi615

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It really just depends on the situation. If i'm UTG with AA in a full ring game and I think the opponents at the table are bad enough to raise and then call a super obvious 4bet shove, then I do it. If i'm up against thinking players, you just make it 3x like anything else to disguise your strength and extract value. The non-optimal plays that go against game theory (such as the limp shove concept) can still be highly profitable - that is if your opponent is bad enough
 
pistolpetewags11

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AA should be raised for many reasons, but it is not at all the worst option to occasionally limp from utg or late in position. Reason why you would limp AA
-Very aggressive table, greater chance a player to act will raise.
- Very early in tournament, keeping pots as small as possible and avoiding any danger.
-You have very exceptional post flop skills.
-Maybe you have been raising constantly, and pick up AA. Why not slow your action down by a little slowplay?

All options require that you be aware of the situation. Very aggressive table is the best case scenario for AA, as you want your opponents to invest more of there money/chips with a worse hand.

Best strategy is to always mix it up. I would suggest AA raises pre-flop evertime. I can say that I have been trapped by the limp aces a few times. So, if I'm in the pot, could be a profitable play for you.

I don't have much else to say. Happy Holidays all! See you around the tables.
 
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