Hey lads ‘n’ ladies . Just a quick question regarding the mighty Aces. I have been playing live multi-table tournaments for just over a year now and have been doing relatively well. Results include: 1 outright win, 1 split, ,5 cashes and a few, okay, A Lot of early bust outs and bad beats.
Alas, recently I am self inflicting many of these bad beats . Last 3 tournaments went like this : Pocket Kings beaten by a set of 7’s, the river kindly providing the last and decisive 7.
Finally to the point I hear you ask…The Mighty Aces represent my final hand in my last two events. Once on the button and once in MP. Both times I evidently Overplay , and earn an early bath . Re Button Aces, the flop was J 6 7 rainbow, having raised pre flop and flop checked back to me I C bet half pot, one call from tightguy one reraise from looseguy . Up to me , Im pretty short stacked so I think 'bout it and shove. Fold,Call. I lose!!! , looseguy shows JJ , another set!!! Turn river both come blanks. Oh well.
And then my most recent game. Aces again , YAY. No, not this time either. This time Im MP and open for 3 big blinds , blinds 6,12k, with antes would have been happy enough if I got the blinds , and having created a reasonably TAG table image , I thought at most me and the BB heads up to the flop . Nope not in this dumbass game . 2 late calls along side the blinds who are now priced in. 5 handed nearly 200k and the flop comes rag city 3d 8d Jc , Super flop for Aces . Only really worry … diamonds? Blinds check to me I go for it “All In” I really want that 200k !!! Fold Snap-Call Fold Fold . Ok Im probably ahead of this guy he probably has A,J maybe A,J diamonds , either way I want my 200k. NO NO NO this guy throws down 3s 8s smiles and informs me “They were suited” I threw up al little in my mouth . Brick Brick Im in the bath again.
Basically any feed back would be super sound , how are you playing your Aces different ? Am I plain playing them wrong? Am I allergic to Aces? Are you ? Let me know , maybe with your help the next time I raise with Aces Imma flop quads. 
What!!! You too!!! And I thought I was special. 
Well if you cant help me who can?
Who Me, Who wont give away any of his tricks…lol
I also had my share of AA cracked, it happens 
Concerning your first hand it boils down to the loose guy type of player IMO. Was he a passive fish or an aggro fish (can’t be a LAG he’d have 3bet your button raise PF with JJ)?
Passive I’d say you should have folded especially w/ the NIT guy still in the hand, he could have been set-mining 77 or 66 and a passive fish usually raise w/ some kind of a made hand, maybe a set or two pairs so it was a bad spot even w/ your AA.
Aggressive I would have shoved as well hopping the NIT guy had something like 89s, 67s, AJ, KK, QQ, any hands he’d either fold or call being behind. In your case you’d still have lost the pot but it made sense to shove given the aggro tard range.
Second hand I really don’t know. MW pots are hard to handle in MP w/ monsters. What was your stack at the moment?
If you were deep enough I’d have checked at least to see where I was standing at.
Imagine it checks all the way and you improve/like the river card, it goes check/check then you can stab at the pot, no need to shove.
If you face a raise from the LP you can see how many callers it gets and then act upon it.
If you were short stacked or committed I’d have shoved also and pray the poker gods for no BS hands like 83s ^^.
Hope it helps.
The size of your preflop raises is important. I know that in an MTT, players may consider 3x a decent sized raise because they often do not want to raise so much that they are pot committed, but with AA you want to raise huge preflop so that you can A) win a big pot and B) make your opponents pay the wrong price to see a flop. Most bad players call raises way too often, and with AA you want to exploit that. Sometimes raising huge can make your hand more obvious, which can make people want to setmine against you (since it could be so profitable), but it will still get calls/3bets from second best hands like AK or QQ (and even worse hands).
In the first situation, it sounds like you were just unlucky because the opponent almost never folds JJ preflop (although a bigger raise could have gotten them to fold, you don’t actually want them to fold; you want them to pay you off, which they did). You just got unlucky.
In the second situation a bigger open raise could have made all of the difference. The caller was a total donk, but they obviously got a great price to see a flop (even though their odds and reverse implied odds are terrible).
Basically, in both situations you got pretty unlucky, but with aces you need to grow a big pot preflop because most of the time it will pay off (although sometimes you will get unlucky). I don’t know what your stack size was like the second time, but it sounds like you played both situations pretty reasonably postflop. Getting your short stack in on a J76 flop makes complete sense, even against a re-raise.
The tough thing about MTTs is that you often don’t have enough stack depth to fold a big hand in a big pot. That’s where luck becomes a factor, but I don’t see how you could possibly have folded either of those hands. Checking in the second situation would make very little sense, leave you with almost no information, and you would probably end up calling down for your whole stack anyway (unless you had millions behind, which it appears you didn’t).
Yeah, you have to raise enough preflop to get heads up. 3x isn’t usually gonna cut it there. I would suggest about 10bbs.
Still, the jacks would probably have come along anyway… nothing you can do there.
JJ vs AA is about a 4-1 dog. (varies slightly with suits)
Say you go allin for 3,000 with AA and get one caller with Jacks. You will win 4 times and lose 1 time, on average. So you win 12,000 (3,000 x 4) and lose 3,000, which puts you 9,000 ahead. This means that, for each of the 5 hands, you make an average of 1,800 (9,000/5). It’s a +EV play, and you should see it as you earning 1,800… no matter if you win the hand or not.
Poker is a game of short term luck and long term skill. Make it statistically incorrect for them to call and you win in the long run. And that’s the way you really have to look at it… in the long term.
And yeah, tournament poker has other considerations, but the basic fact remains: you play a lifetime of poker, you should look at the overall picture.
I believe he 3x raised since it’s a 200k pot and there were 4 callers + antes. If he had made a larger bet (>5x) he probably would have faced less callers. But since he decided to 3x and got a MW he must adjust a bit IMO.
The callers could have any hand at this point.
He’s against 8 cards with no info on their range OOP.
Tough spot.
If he’s committed, shoving is OK.
If he has something like 700k+ I’d consider checking once to get at least some information even if it’s slim and leave some options open.
Maybe you won’t have any info and you have the same exact choice on 4th street.
Maybe you face an open raise and it goes call call call making the pot enormous so you shove and get more $ if you’re ahead.
Maybe it goes open raise then 3 bet then 4 bet maybe 5 bet and you’re like I should get out of here even with my AA because it doesn’t make any sense.
I believe checking in that case could be a +EV play also because it can entice aggressive players to make a stab at the pot thus generating some folds and you can shove right after. Checking gives you more flexibility than just going all in.
The first part of what you are saying is what I said (or meant). By raising bigger (I’d raise to 6-10x on replay, maybe 5-6x for real poker).
Postflop, I mostly agree with your analysis, but it depends a lot on stack size. The only thing I don’t like about checking is that you are faced potentially very difficult decisions. So, with less than <400k I’m probably all-in on the flop because you can still get called by Jx and pocket pairs other than sets. With 400k-600k left behind, it is an extremely difficult spot, and checking makes more sense. With more than that behind, I might make a bet like 150k and see what happens. It’s not really a scary board and there is value to be had. Checking gives other players an opportunity to put you to a really difficult decision because it underreps your hand so much. And with a heart draw, you don’t want to give people the opportunity to see a free turn card.
Basically, you want to raise bigger pre-flop because the situation you find your self in post-flop is extremely difficult.
The other important thing to remember is that if you have a stack of let’s say 250k-300k going into the hand, then raising big and getting everyone to fold so that you win the blinds is perfectly fine. If the blinds are 6k/12k plus antes, that means you added 10% to your stack in an uncontested pot. I will take that any time. Every if you aren’t short stacked, there’s nothing wrong with an uncontested pot. The reason you raise is so that every idiot with 38s doesn’t get to see a flop, so if that means nobody has a hand to call with, that is fine.
Hah, funny, we were just breaking down our performance in Bust the Staff and I had a hunch a lot of my problems were based on weak bets. This all but confirms that’s my next area of attention. (And yeah, Aces are bad news. I hate folding them in any combination, but it seems to pay off more than not. But heck, I went out on pocket 7s yesterday – ugh.)
Even worse when you’re pretty sure the other person is bluffing, but they have a much taller stack to absorb and fight back. ><
Definitely need to get in the habit of thinking about the bankroll as a long term investment (especially with play chips) rather than dinner money.
Most of the time when I go on tilt, it’s because I get so afraid of bad beats that I stop betting aggressively enough. Bet sizing is extremely important.
The flip side of that is being able to read opponents so that you know when to fold your pocket aces and when to bet the farm (which, as this conversation shows, is an extremely complex challenge).
I totally agree 
I was just trying to give him a different line of actions that could have been better in some cases.
Again it depends on the stacks, say he had 20 to 25 BB PF I’d probably go all in to put max pressure and be happy with picking up the blinds/antes.
He might even have one caller with 99+ and maybe Ax since he’d be short stack and players tend to pay more often which in most cases makes sense late in MTT.
So 3x in that case would almost be slow playing AA.
Hi
Shake hands on AA and river losses. I had hte same experience. My general observation is that I will match an all in call pre flop, but a 3xBB bet otherwise (also pre flop). After the flop, if rainbow no pairs I will bet 3x BB and watch the response. if an all in comes on flop, I will consider folding most times as usually sets are in play.
My opinion
I prefer Q-Q or K-K over pocket Aces. Lost more of those (A-A) than I won. Also depending on the number of players that are calling. One on one, go for it. But 3-4 or more players, watch out! (I mostly play 9-players tables)
I can fold them as i see that im not gonna win, better way for me to play with AA its just make call a big blind, and then if you see one more ace which makes me a set, and ther is no flush and str8 i go all in, and some one call me with double pair, thats the best way for me to play AA.
aa is the same as 22…unless its head ups preflop if u dont hit anything on the flop say a trip or at the least a runner runner needed st8…fold them dont matter 10 10 kk aa all the same unless the flop is all over the board and u have face cards then u can stick around pending the bet isnt to high for the turn or the river but for the most part even if i have aa or kk if i dont get something to work with on the flop its a safer call to fold
aa is far different from 22. In preflop get as much money in as possible and then play postflop as like you have top pair with top kicker
Shut your eyes take a real deep breath and bet them hard…trying to knock out all but 2 hopefully 1. If the flop showes no pairs go for the gusto…I win more this way then any other I’ve tried. You know how many times are you going to them ? Go for the gold …SMILE!!!
When your opponent flops a set to your overpair, you’re probably going to have a bad day no matter what.
Many players will call any bet with any pair preflop, so not a lot you can do to prevent it.
One pair rarely wins a pot when there are a lot of players taking the flop, so all you can really do is bet enough to try to limit the field preflop and hope you hand holds up.
Postflop, I mostly agree with what Joe said, but I would never check if there is a possible straight or flush draw on the board. Win or lose, I can’t give you a free card that can beat me.
Hey Guys, and Girls.
I’d like to thank you for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. A lot of what you guys said helps and opens my mind up to post-flop, monster pair play. Special shout out to SunPowerGuru, Joe Dirk and Qu410. It’s quite clear you guys demand the right to be listened to, you guys know your poker!!! I truly appreciate your help.
But now !!! To something else, something more personal and something far more frustrating. My account has been muted, again!!! My hands are up, I admit, I sometimes use what could be seen as “offensive” language, here on Replay. Sometimes, out of boredom. Sometimes, for sheer hilarity and my own amusement. I concur this is wrong and against the rules. However having said this, poker is a “mans” game. Not to say ladies need not apply but I mean , this is a grown ups game, a big-kid game if you take me into account. And if you cannot handle a light hearted “f-uck man” in your chatbox then maybe your not mentally equipped with the psychological balls to play poker… I would rather not bring others into this but If feel my hands are tied. I am friends with and enjoy the friendship of some of the pillars of the Replay community SharonSmarty, Iluson, Gatzby, satchypaul amongst others . And they know I can drop the eff bomb too frequently but ask them , have I ever offended them , have I ever went “too far” or ask them can they tell the difference between someone having a joke(the craic) and someone who actually intends harm. Have you ever reported anyone for cursing or have you ever been truly insulted by some wise ass here on Replay, have I ever truly insulted any of you? Please let me know via private mail as I am muted for a WEEK. I will take the time to apologize to anyone hurt during the course of any of my inflammatory verbal(playful)rampages.
OHHH NO!!! My Aces didn’t hold , the river , again!!! I dare not curse!!! There may be children playing…
Be Sweet , Stay Shady