Those Pesky Aces Got you Blue?
There's a question for the ages, in poker terms. The short answer is 'Hah!' but the longer and more careful answer is, 'It depends on the game and conditions.'
Slow-playing a pair of pocket aces, particularly under the gun, is often an invitation to trouble, and as you grow in experience at the game, you will invariably run up against a player who never limps under the gun, always raising if he's going to play – except in the rare case he has pocket aces. The idea, of course, is that he wants someone to raise from late position, so he can come back over the top with a hefty three-bet in an attempt to get lots of chips into the pot before the flop.
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Once you encounter this particular breed of player and see this trait, you'll be able to limp behind with pocket queens, toss them away if other action compels you to, and toss them away for cheap after the flop if you don't connect for the set. The lesson: Don't be that type of player, and make your pocket aces so obvious by your position bets.
That said, there are some general rules you can adhere to if that 1-in-229-hand occurrence comes up, and you find yourself staring down at pocket rockets. The general rule is to play them a little bit faster then you might otherwise believe. It's easy to lose a lot of money with aces, perhaps even easier than it is to win a lot of money with them. New casino low wagering. So with that in mind:
First Rule, Don't Limp
Don't limp with your aces if you are at a soft, passive (often lower-stakes) table that often sees four or five or six players seeing a cheap flop. Pocket aces play very poorly against a large number of competing hands, and even though they're a prohibitive favorite against any other single hand, they can often be a large dog against a collection of other hands. Don't forget it's the trash that connects to the flop that stays around and plays; the trash that misses folds and disappears from the hand. Coordinated flops like 9-10-J are absolute death for pocket aces in a multi-way pot. Throw them away and lick your wounds quietly.
Don't Always 3 Bet
Conversely, don't always make the automatic three-bet in poker with pocket aces before the flop. When holding pocket aces, you want to limit the field, not destroy it. If there's a healthy raise pre-flop by an aggressive player, and your image is loose, go ahead and make the three-bet raise and mix it up at will. Casino in laughlin nevada. But another ploy that works well against tighter, more cautious players is called 'second-hand low'. This is when an early-position player makes a healthy opening raise – perhaps $12 or $15 in a $1/2 cash game, and you just smooth-call from middle position. This gives a late-position player or one of the blinds the opportunity to look at a half-good hand like A-K and make a three-bet squeeze raise, which should have you dancing in your seat. Don't do this too often or become too devoted to other subtle tricks, lest you succumb to 'fancy play syndrome', but the occasional subterfuge will improve your game and profit margin.
About the Pot Odds
Use your pocket aces to deny proper pot odds to your opponents. Whether in cash games or tournaments, a situation often arises where you can size your bets in such a way as to ensure a single opponent does not have the proper odds to continue in the hand, even though he may think he does. Imagine a cash-game scenario, playing something as simple as $1/2, where you and your opponent in a hand both have $120 in chips. He opens to perhaps $10, and you, holding pocket aces here, can go ahead and put in an undersized reraise to perhaps $25 to induce the call. While he is rightly guessing that his $15 call is worth it when there's $38 or more in the pot and your remaining $95 to potentially still be won, you have the knowledge that your aces are between 3.6:1 and 6:1 favorites heads-up before the flop against any other hand.
The likeliest hand to crack pocket aces is 10-9 suited, but the aces will still win 77% of the time. Play your aces just guarded enough against possible sets and flops that make 'ace-cracker' hands work, but most of the time, following up with a sizeable post-flop bet is again the odds-on play. Often, your opponent will flop a flush or straight draw, and you must make it unprofitable for him to pursue that draw – even though many players can't resist the temptation and will call against the odds anyway. These players are your long-term victims, even if they are paradoxically the ones most likely to crack your aces in any given hand. Geometric features-based parking slot detection system. Such is the nature of poker. We always remember the aces we lose with, but rarely the ones we win with!
Aces and Drawing Hands, The Crackers
Beware drawing hands in deep-stack situations. A corollary to the above. No matter how pretty your pocket aces look, pocket aces don't beat straights and flushes. You must drive drawing hands out of the hand, and the only way to do that is to protect your aces with a large bet. Pre-flop that means limiting the field; post-flop that means putting in raises of at least three-quarters of the pot on each round to make sure your opponent doesn't have the right pot odds to chase those eight- and nine-outers.
Hitting a Set of Aces
If you've flopped a set of aces, there is always a potential straight draw. This might sound odd, but a set of kings is often a far safer hand to slow-play after the flop than is a set of aces. Imagine yourself with a pair of pocket aces, and envision a flop of any three non-paired cards that include an ace. No matter what the other two non-ace cards are, if you let your opponents see the turn for free, a turn card that doesn't pair the board will always put some sort of straight in play. It might be a highly unlikely holding, such as the big blind holding 4-7 and the board through the turn showing A-5-J-8, but if you've let this player see all these cards for free and a 6 comes off on the river (roughly a 1-in-11 chance), you've only yourself to blame. You have to charge them something for the dream of making that hand.
No worthy bad beat story ever started with, 'I limped with pocket aces….' Enough said.
Author:Joseph Falchetti (twitter)
(C) Copyright PokerWebsites.com, 2018
A player's hole cards are sometimes referred to as their 'pocket cards,' or simply 'the pocket.' Pocket cards are cards which are dealt face down so that only the player holding them may see them. Pocket cards are frequently called 'hole cards.' The pocket is also frequently referred to as 'the hole.'
In Texas Holdem, each player is dealt two hole cards before the first betting round. This is commonly known as the 'starting hand.' Each poker hand begins with the delivery of the starting hand. After receiving it, players must decide whether to continue on in the hand based upon several factors, including the quality of their starting hand, the quality of their position, and the size of the bet they are facing. Good players are typically very selective about the starting hands they choose to play, and they maintain and self-enforce starting hand requirements. This means that starting hands must meet a certain standard of quality to be considered playable, and if they don't meet that standard, then they are categorically rejected without consideration. Different players will have different starting hand requirements, depending upon how loose or tight they play.
In a Hold'em game, if a player holds a pair in his starting hand, it is called a 'pocket pair.' Pocket pairs are frequently referred to specifically by their rank, so that a starting hand of two Aces would be referred to as 'pocket aces' (aka pocket rockets). A starting hand of two kings would be referred to as 'pocket kings' (aka pocket cowboys), and so on. Pocket pairs are generally accepted by most players as playable starting hands, although some tighter players may opt not to play small pairs, especially if they are out of position or if the pot has already been raised.
The starting hand is extremely important in a Hold'em game, because it is the only thing that differentiates your hand from your opponent's. After the two card starting hand is delivered, the remaining five cards the dealer will deliver are all community cards, which are dealt face up and shared by all players. Holdem game play is pretty much centered around trying to figure out which two hole cards your opponent is likely to be holding.
Hold'em is a flop game, which puts it into an entirely different category of poker games than Seven Card Stud. Seven Card Stud does not use community cards (except on rare occasions), has a three card starting hand rather than two, and receives its river card face down as part of the pocket, instead of face up as a community card. Despite these and many other differences, Texas Hold'em was developed as a derivation of Seven Card Stud, and the two games do have many similarities. In most types of Seven Card Stud games, players are dealt a three card starting hand, frequently referred to as 'Third Street.' A third street starting hand consists of two down facing pocket cards and one card delivered face up. The down cards are called hole cards, just as they would be in a Hold'em game, whereas the up card is called the 'door card.' These down cards have a similar function in both Stud and Hold'em, because in both games they are secret and known only to the holder. Also similarly, when the down cards make up a pair in either game, it is referred to as a pocket pair.
Of course, a Hold'em player only has a two card starting hand, making pocket pairs a relatively rare occurrence (16 to 1). Contrast this with Seven Card Stud, where each player starts with a three card starting hand, which causes a pair to appear with much more frequency (5 to 1). In a stud game, two thirds of your third street pairs will be split pairs (comprised of the door car plus one of your two pocket cards) while only one third will be pocket pairs. Pocket pairs are generally considered to be more valuable than split pairs of the same ranking, because they are concealed, and are often difficult for your opponent to read.
Pocket Rockets In Poker
Stud players are wary of split pairs and regard the pairing of another player's door card as dangerous, especially if that player has been calling raises or betting aggressively. This makes sense, since players frequent include paired hand in their starting hand requirements. Some tight players may even give you credit for at least three of a kind and make a big laydown when you pair your door card under these circumstances. It is a much more difficult read for your opponent to make when you have made a set from a pocket pair, because you will only be using one card from the board, while having two concealed in the pocket.
Usage: Pocket Deuces Never Loses, Pocket Fives
Previous Poker Term: Play the Board
Hitting a Set of Aces
If you've flopped a set of aces, there is always a potential straight draw. This might sound odd, but a set of kings is often a far safer hand to slow-play after the flop than is a set of aces. Imagine yourself with a pair of pocket aces, and envision a flop of any three non-paired cards that include an ace. No matter what the other two non-ace cards are, if you let your opponents see the turn for free, a turn card that doesn't pair the board will always put some sort of straight in play. It might be a highly unlikely holding, such as the big blind holding 4-7 and the board through the turn showing A-5-J-8, but if you've let this player see all these cards for free and a 6 comes off on the river (roughly a 1-in-11 chance), you've only yourself to blame. You have to charge them something for the dream of making that hand.
No worthy bad beat story ever started with, 'I limped with pocket aces….' Enough said.
Author:Joseph Falchetti (twitter)
(C) Copyright PokerWebsites.com, 2018
A player's hole cards are sometimes referred to as their 'pocket cards,' or simply 'the pocket.' Pocket cards are cards which are dealt face down so that only the player holding them may see them. Pocket cards are frequently called 'hole cards.' The pocket is also frequently referred to as 'the hole.'
In Texas Holdem, each player is dealt two hole cards before the first betting round. This is commonly known as the 'starting hand.' Each poker hand begins with the delivery of the starting hand. After receiving it, players must decide whether to continue on in the hand based upon several factors, including the quality of their starting hand, the quality of their position, and the size of the bet they are facing. Good players are typically very selective about the starting hands they choose to play, and they maintain and self-enforce starting hand requirements. This means that starting hands must meet a certain standard of quality to be considered playable, and if they don't meet that standard, then they are categorically rejected without consideration. Different players will have different starting hand requirements, depending upon how loose or tight they play.
In a Hold'em game, if a player holds a pair in his starting hand, it is called a 'pocket pair.' Pocket pairs are frequently referred to specifically by their rank, so that a starting hand of two Aces would be referred to as 'pocket aces' (aka pocket rockets). A starting hand of two kings would be referred to as 'pocket kings' (aka pocket cowboys), and so on. Pocket pairs are generally accepted by most players as playable starting hands, although some tighter players may opt not to play small pairs, especially if they are out of position or if the pot has already been raised.
The starting hand is extremely important in a Hold'em game, because it is the only thing that differentiates your hand from your opponent's. After the two card starting hand is delivered, the remaining five cards the dealer will deliver are all community cards, which are dealt face up and shared by all players. Holdem game play is pretty much centered around trying to figure out which two hole cards your opponent is likely to be holding.
Hold'em is a flop game, which puts it into an entirely different category of poker games than Seven Card Stud. Seven Card Stud does not use community cards (except on rare occasions), has a three card starting hand rather than two, and receives its river card face down as part of the pocket, instead of face up as a community card. Despite these and many other differences, Texas Hold'em was developed as a derivation of Seven Card Stud, and the two games do have many similarities. In most types of Seven Card Stud games, players are dealt a three card starting hand, frequently referred to as 'Third Street.' A third street starting hand consists of two down facing pocket cards and one card delivered face up. The down cards are called hole cards, just as they would be in a Hold'em game, whereas the up card is called the 'door card.' These down cards have a similar function in both Stud and Hold'em, because in both games they are secret and known only to the holder. Also similarly, when the down cards make up a pair in either game, it is referred to as a pocket pair.
Of course, a Hold'em player only has a two card starting hand, making pocket pairs a relatively rare occurrence (16 to 1). Contrast this with Seven Card Stud, where each player starts with a three card starting hand, which causes a pair to appear with much more frequency (5 to 1). In a stud game, two thirds of your third street pairs will be split pairs (comprised of the door car plus one of your two pocket cards) while only one third will be pocket pairs. Pocket pairs are generally considered to be more valuable than split pairs of the same ranking, because they are concealed, and are often difficult for your opponent to read.
Pocket Rockets In Poker
Stud players are wary of split pairs and regard the pairing of another player's door card as dangerous, especially if that player has been calling raises or betting aggressively. This makes sense, since players frequent include paired hand in their starting hand requirements. Some tight players may even give you credit for at least three of a kind and make a big laydown when you pair your door card under these circumstances. It is a much more difficult read for your opponent to make when you have made a set from a pocket pair, because you will only be using one card from the board, while having two concealed in the pocket.
Usage: Pocket Deuces Never Loses, Pocket Fives
Previous Poker Term: Play the Board
Pocket Rockets Poker
Next Poker Term: Pocket Pair