How to play AA or KK - Limping from early position good or not?

[gus201]

hi all

i cant get no satisfaction with AA
i know its supost to be "the best hand" but i cant really win much with them

on turbo games i just go all-in and keep losing 50% of the time

on the sunday storm players tend to be more tigh since there is alot of money in play and even when i min raise when blinds are 20/40 to 80 chips and stacks are abouve 5k they all fold
and the villian that made the mistake of limping in with poket AA while i was on the blind and checking until the river before betting big lost half of his chips becouse by then i made a straight with 57 off suit lol


so what is the best way to play pocket aces becouse right now i think its better to play like a smal pair and hope to get tripes before even betting while looking in the corner for draws

First Off I think you mean AA is the best starting hand. the best hand is a Royal Flush.
If you bet them and depending on your position bet to eliminate to 1 or 2 players. Keeping an eye on the table when you are not playing will help with some of these descisions.
Aww lost tract of what I was going to say post it later . ( at work )

 

[gus201]

Would you ever consider folding a royal flush on the river?

Of course not well that is the nuts on the river... just the same value as AA pre flop

Hypethetically lets say your BB and theres 9 all ins before you, does your AA still have that value it once did before any action took place ? Would you now think about laying it down ?
Just Curious some times it is best to avoid areas when your going to make hard descisions and may or may not lay down but may be behind easily after the flop. I try to make my descisions easy . All In preflop my experience has taught me that I now am giving any one else 5 cards to beat me and I have to guess if My hand will hold up.
I Need to take inconcideration the other players stayles what they will call all in with .some with any A , others only a pair. So reads come into play.
Folding AA is right at times and I will do that again if need be. Playing them no matter what because they are the best starting hand doesnt always mean they will win 100% so if you can fold in areas where it is harder for them to hold up your saving chips and staying around longer.

 

[Shumkoolie]

'Limp raising to disguise your hand'

Lol @ that! It turns your hand face up. Fishiest move in the book. You may as well turn your hand over.

You know what's funny though, from time to time, it works and you get somebody to call off after a limp shove (for example). However, if you're balancing your range and doing it with hands other than Aces (limp raising but not shoving your whole stack), if it helps you accumulate chips, then who's to say it's a fishy play.

If you have a decent read on your opponent, you could probably reasonably sniff out that (s)he is doing this with Aces.

It's the same as people who, regardless of the size of the pot, will bet 1 or 2 bb's on every street, then makes a big river bet.

 

[Pahs1011]

small raise in early pos, preflop big raise in late if multiple players in pot, after that it depends on how many players see flop, what kind of players see flop, and texture of flop.

 

[TakinOver]

You will see this post over and over. Every forum and every poker site. Except maybe the prize site where you dont deposit..50% is I would say. I lose about 88%. No joke. Theres nothing you can do but cry like me or fold that garbage...

 

[lobbyrunner]

bet big hope someone calls then shove.f the bs n try n get chips eff the turn n river

 

[BYOP]

Would you ever consider folding a royal flush on the river?

Of course not well that is the nuts on the river... just the same value as AA pre flop

thats not really a good thing to compare with lol
if you have a royal flush you know your going to win and if its what is on the board you know its a draw so it doesnt matter you can bet big or smal and still win

when you have AA pre-flop and you go all-in and get calld its like your Neo from the matrix and you need to dodge 5 bullets
sometimes you can get hit once and survive or dodge one bullet with one of your own(an A on the board) but half of the time you just get shoot down :argh:

 

[youregoodmate]

thats not really a good thing to compare with lol
if you have a royal flush you know your going to win and if its what is on the board you know its a draw so it doesnt matter you can bet big or smal and still win

when you have AA pre-flop and you go all-in and get calld its like your Neo from the matrix and you need to dodge 5 bullets
sometimes you can get hit once and survive or dodge one bullet with one of your own(an A on the board) but half of the time you just get shoot down :argh:

Actually you get 'shot down' around 20% of the time.

Sorry that being an 80% favourite isn't good enough for you.

 

[BYOP]

the "math" and what really happens are two diferent things
if you dont belive me teach me how to record and post hands and you will see what really happens to me...maybe you just run better with aces than i do becouse i get sucker punch alot going all-in with aces preflop...maybe im still stuck on those 20% your saying lol

 

[youregoodmate]

the "math" and what really happens are two diferent things
if you dont belive me teach me how to record and post hands and you will see what really happens to me...maybe you just run better with aces than i do becouse i get sucker punch alot going all-in with aces preflop...maybe im still stuck on those 20% your saying lol

It's called selective memory. Buy PokerTracker or HoldEm Manager, then you can track your aces.

 

[youregoodmate]

Here's my aces graph. Just for the last week.

 

[alaz3r]

I hate f.. Ace.. Never won with AA -.- ,how to won when you raise 5 donkey call you with a 72 58.. -.-

 

[pokrshot]

Yes, AA is just a pair sometimes. Most of us experience this. When we have AA, we expect to win a big pot. I think it depends on position, number of people still in the hand and also the format of the game. We've to figure out whether to raise or to go all-in.

 

[supermoto]

the best way for me is increasing as hard as possible taking into account ho are in that hand usually if there are several with more chips you get paid ue but know ue if one goes all in the system is programmed to give a slight advantage since ue ented systems scheduled for that it is best not to go with them.

 

[erlanditas]

When I play poker tournaments MTT multitabling sometimes limp strong hands like Kings or Aces from early position, if no one limps before me in the pot is that "option" good or not?

 

[lfc]

For me it depends a lot on the players. I don't know if it is a good idea to do it when multy tabling . But I guess If the tables allows it and it is likely someone will raise more often than not then its a fine tool to get some extra value. I try to do it mostly when extremely short stack and need to extract maximum value or when playing certain player.

 

[romych007]

I think that this game might
cause problems on the flop
where you will play more
cautiously

 

[CactusCat]

Never do it. I won't even limp from the button with AA or KK and risk the blinds outflopping me.

 

[or3o1990]

I agree with cactuscat. The only way this is a good idea from early is if you know someone from late position will try to steal raise you and the other limper out of the pot. Then you can re raise. But in the long run this probably becomes unprofitable because many times everyone else will just limp and possibly out flop you. When this hapoens you get stacked.

 

[MediaBLITZ]

Actually you REDUCE value by doing this. What you want more than anything is to go heads up against another "strong" hand (of course second best to yours) so your hand maximizes its odds of holding up - its best opportunity is versus only one opponent. See how AA looks below versus number of opponents:

Versus 1 = 85% to win
Versus 2 = 73% to win
Versus 3 = 64% to win
Versus 4 = 56% to win
Versus 5 = 49% to win

Notice the biggest dip is from 1 to 2 opponents. You get 5 callers and now the field is the favorite to win the hand. To make matters even worse you see a flop of 782 with two hearts. Would someone with 78s call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! Would someone with 22 call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! Would someone with two hearts (with the intent of chasing a flush) call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! You have no idea where you are at in the hand. You can avoid that easily with a little 2 1/2 BB raise from early position.

 

[S3mper]

Never do it. I won't even limp from the button with AA or KK and risk the blinds outflopping me.

Well the reason people limp from EP with these hands is hoping some one else will raise, On the BTN is the time you want to be raising because your button opeing raise should be much wider and its hard to give people credit on the BTN

Actually you REDUCE value by doing this. What you want more than anything is to go heads up against another "strong" hand (of course second best to yours) so your hand maximizes its odds of holding up - its best opportunity is versus only one opponent. See how AA looks below versus number of opponents:

Versus 1 = 85% to win
Versus 2 = 73% to win
Versus 3 = 64% to win
Versus 4 = 56% to win
Versus 5 = 49% to win

Notice the biggest dip is from 1 to 2 opponents. You get 5 callers and now the field is the favorite to win the hand. To make matters even worse you see a flop of 782 with two hearts. Would someone with 78s call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! Would someone with 22 call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! Would someone with two hearts call your limp? ABSOLUTELY! You have no idea where you are at in the hand. You can avoid that easily with a little 2 1/2 BB raise from early position.

Again we're doing this in hopes of getting a LAG opponent whose raising every pot to raise...



This can be a good move against bad layers in micro stakes tournaments because they will 2b shove 40bb+ATC ut once you play against thinking opponents it's hard to get maximum values because limp raising looks extremely strong.. Like Aces or Kings strong...

If were lucky enough to limp get raised and be isolated HU where we can maybe flat and make it look like a small pair we may get value on the flop but even that can be difficult cause it almost looks like were repping a set

 

[lcid86]

If you know your opponents are going to raise with air it can be profitable, but it's not something that pays off if you do it frequently. Biggest danger is everyone else limps and you end up with multiple players.

 

[jimmy62]

I agree that limping, especially where some players just absolutely refuse to accept they have a subpar hand can be more advantageous to them than you.My idea is, if their going to take it to the river to beat me, their going to have to pay dearly to do it.More players in the hand means more chances of someone donkin out on you.

 

[rifflemao]

I did it on Bov tonight with AA, but for a specific purpose. Player on my left had just lost most of his stack, and I was expecting him to shove atc with 4-5 bb left. Instead, he folded pre and there were three other limpers with the blinds at 100/200. Then the BB bumped it to 1000, I shoved, and everyone folded. BB had me covered by 2x.

I felt gross doing it, but got some value this time.

In a live game last summer, I slow-played QQ on the button expecting the BB to shove over limpers. He did, everyone else folded, and he stood up and said "You got me...". He flopped an oesfd and binked on the turn for half my stack. :-/ Limper beware...

 

[ph_il]

I dont like just limping in with AA/KK in early position because it just puts you in an awkward situation to play OOP against a lot of players if there is no raise.

However, when I do mix it up from my standard raises from EP 4x, I like to raise to about 2.25x BB, or just slightly over a min raise. Still risky and I'll get calls, but also some folds as well, to thin out the field. At the same time, I've fattened up the pot and hopefully someone with a hand like AJ, A10s, 1010, etc is going to raise to try and isolate or take it down. Especially if they think my min raise PF is weak. And from there I can repop it.

I could do the same thing with a 4x BB bet, but from UTG or EP, most players see this as being strong and will want a strong hand to see with. I'm also only getting called most of the time and raise with QQ+, AQs, AK, so a dry board will likely kill my action unless they have an over pair or draw. With the 2.25x raise, I'm inviting action and giving myself a much better chance of it happening. Of course, more action with more players is risky, but can yield a much bigger reward.

In a tournament, I think this is a great play during the mid-late stages with high blinds and antes; build a nice sized pot for someone to try and take down pre. Again, not something to do all the time, but to mix it up. It also depends on how your opponents are playing. In early stages, I wouldnt do this and would stick to the standard 4x BB raise or even higher if its an active table. You could get action from a 10x BB raise or even an UTG shove.