Online Poker Guide - Texas Holdem Strategies
Texas Holdem Strategies: Playing Aces in Texas Holdem Poker
Professional players are often asked by poker media and TV shows; “What is your favourite hand?”. The answers are often varied and, surprisingly, few players choose the best starting hand in Texas Hold’em; pocket Aces. Superstition often plays a big part in poker and that may be the reason why some of the best players in the world favour Eight – Four off-suit instead of pocket Aces. However, superstition can be argued against where as cold, hard, facts cannot. Pocket Aces are the cards you want in your starting hand. You become the immediate favourite and can be as aggressive as you wish without fear of being behind before the flop.
So playing Aces would seem simple enough. Bet, raise, re-raise and make it expensive for your opponent to get his chips in the middle as the underdog. While that poker strategy is quite correct, in general, there are more subtle ways you can play Aces and perhaps disguise your strong hand which, hopefully, should result in a bigger pay off.
Let’s take a look at an example of “easing off the gas” when you have Aces before the flop:
In a $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em game you are in mid-position and you pick up Aces. The action is folded to you and you make a pretty standard raise to $8. The action is then folded to the player in the big blind. He picks up pocket Jacks. After a short dwell he re-raises to $24 and the action is back on you. You have over $150 behind you at this stage and your opponent has almost $200. The temptation here might be to re-raise back, perhaps push all-in, but do we really want to scare our opponent away? By showing further aggression we run the risk of telling our opponent we have one of the very best hands in poker and unless he is holding the same hand as you, pocket Kings or perhaps pocket Queens we could easily lose our customer. Your position is very strong at this stage as you also hold position over your opponent because he is in the big blind. By flat calling his pre-flop re-raise you are disguising your super strong hand. Your opponent may think you have AK, AQ or perhaps a small pocket pair and feel his Jacks are ahead.
After calling the re-raise the flop is a harmless looking Two-Three-Nine of different suits and your opponent confidently makes a $50 bet. You raise and move all in. Your opponent will now struggle to fold his over pair of pocket Jacks and you are very likely to double your stack.
Of course slow playing Aces like that can be dangerous too. There are no fool-proof ways of playing any hand in poker. By playing Aces slowly you run the risk of allowing your opponent to make a hand. Keep in consideration that if you play Aces that way each time you will occasionally lose, as well as win, some large pots.
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Online Poker Guide: Playing Aces
Yes, they're the strongest starting cards in poker but are they really that good? Well, to be frank, yes. Its rare when you'll lose a game with cards such as those, but it is possible, and the longer the game goes then the more community cards become available to your opponent(s) to build a three of a kind or straight or better. Make you move but always consider whats on the table. For example, if you see sequential numbers or lots of onsuit cards then its likely that some may have nailed the straight or flush. Now you know how to play aces when not test your new skills at 32Red Poker.
