Poker

What To Do With Pocket Aces

by
Strategic mind
January 15, 2020

What to do with pocket Aces – Should you LIMP IN, or raise? This depends on many variables. For example, how many people do you have at the table? Did someone raise before you? How many callers do you have currently? Where are you at in action? Before you make a quick decision, you need to to figure out what method is the most profitable. Most of the time you do not want aces to go past the flop. Aces have a low range of making any more hands past the highest pair. The longer you are in the hand the more money you can make, but also the more hands you opponent can make. Let diagnose the best starting hand in the game.

What To Do With Pocket Aces (Preflop)

What to do with pocket Aces – The worst quick decision is to LIMP IN. The only situations you should limp in is when you have a couple players on tilt and you are expecting outrageous bets on the flop or you are expecting someone to go all in that hasn’t had the option to call the blind yet, but even then they can still hit a hand that beats you. The first thing you want to focus on is getting the weak hands out before the flop comes. The way you do that is you raise the blind. Tripling the blind is a good play, and sometimes 4X the blind is good too if you have a good feel for the table. Doing this will get many hands like K-9, 10-8, and ect out. You want hands similar to yours to call.

What To Do On The Preflop

Now if someone has raised the blind already, unless they went all in, you should raise 90% of the time. At least double their raise. This is preflop so you have the best hand and have no worries, you want the other player to have KK, and if they are bluffing even better! You just raised their bet and now they will fold and you take down the pot without ever seeing the board. The other 10% where you should not raise is if they went all in or went way over the top and bet a crazy amount. You want them to know you have a strong hand but you don’t want to raise because you are basically telling them you have aces. Got to Hollywood it a little bit.

What To Do With Pocket Aces (Flop)

What to do on the flop – So you have executed the preflop perfect and you have some callers and the pot is looking good. The flop comes out now what? It gets even more complicated now. Bet, Check, or All in? I would say never check unless two aces came out and you have quads and you know for a fact you are going to win, then we want to act weak and check or bet 1/4 the pot.

What To Do On The Flop

Otherwise you should never check, we need to get information about the other players hands. If the action is on you and no one has bet then we make a bet. Usually 1/2 the pot or close to it is a good bet. Because for weak hands its enough to fold and for strong hands its enough to call. If we see a raise come after our bet then we need to study the board, and the possible hands that could have been made. Based on this information we need to call or fold.

What To Do On The Turn

What to do with pocket aces on the turn – If you have made it this far then it can be good or bad. Good because there is a lot of money in the pot, and bad because the opponent could have made a hand. At this point we need to really gather information about what our opponent(s) have. We need to bet if we are first in action to do so, or if a bet has came your way that is 30% of the pot or lower you need to raise. If a bet has came your way that is higher; you need to make an important decision.

What To Do On The Turn

If you do call, you should almost call anything on the river since you are now pot committed. You need to take a good hard look at the board and remember what your opponent(s) called or bet in the other stages. Unless they are majorly bluffing then they probably have a decent hand if not a great one. Remember you only have a pair. If you still haven’t connected on the board, then you need to decide if you are willing to risk all your chips to win this hand. Another option is getting your opponent to fold. If your opponent has a weak hand or a decent hand the right bet can make him fold.

What To Do On The River

What to do on the river – Now the last community card has came. There are a couple things we need to look at. How many people are in the hand? What does the final board look like? How many chips are behind your opponents? We want as few people in the hand as possible, the fewer hands the fewer combinations other players can have, and the lower the risk for you to lose your stack. The next thing is the board. How messy is the board? Meaning are there suited cards, connectors, or pairs on the board. If so then it is likely you are going to lose and the only way you can win is a big bet to scare your opponents. However, information about the previous stages should make this decision.

What To Do On The River

For example, has the opponent been acting weak, making low bets, or checking his cards to much. The last thing to look for is how many chips are behind your opponent, if few chips are behind them then that means they are already pot committed and is most likely going to call any bet. This determines your strategy whether to bet and try to get them to fold or to check, or check raise to see their strength. If the opponent has a lot of chips behind them a CHECK-RAISE is advised.

Most likely if they have called every bet then they will not check to turn the cards over, they will bet. If your opponent bet 30% of the pot or less, a check raise is advised. Nothing puts pressure on someone like an all in. Otherwise, if higher than 30%, you need to once again determine a call or raise based on the information before. A fold at this point can be the move, but if you are pot committed then you are now at the point where you almost have to call in any situation unless your opponent is all in. You do not want to go out just because you are “pot committed”.