folding AA

[Meatmaw]

How often do you all fold AA after a flop? No need to go into the extreme cases of folding them to get in the money etc. I'm curious what pattern of betting and flop cards would compel you to fold pocket Aces.

I ask because recently I've lost a number of times to flops where I wasn't sure if I should be scared enough to fold. Example:
Guy raises, I reraise, he calls. Flop is J 8 5. I go all-in, he calls. He has a set of J. Granted I could see JJ as a potential hand preflop, but also QQ and KK which would occur with much higher frequency to JJ in that case (4 to 1).

Another example: Flop J52. He bets, I raise all in, he has 2 pair Js and 5s. He was BB so maybe I called knowing i'd have max 2 opponents to play slow, and maybe that was a mistake, but is there any pattern of betting that would make you say "yeah, folding Aces, a good thing"?

Which leads to another question, do you ever slowplay Aces at least preflop when you can guarantee at most 2 opponents? I tend to raise, but time and again when no one calls I'm left wondering if I'm hurting my overall EV because when AA hits me I should be extracting MORE.

Advice appreciated.

[BradleyT]

"Flop is J 8 5. I go all-in"

Hopefully this wasn't in an early round. And if it was in a later round you're not getting JJ out of the pot pre-flop anyway.


"Flop J52. He bets, I raise all in, he has 2 pair Js and 5s."

Again, raising all in is not good on early rounds. However on a later round this is definitely correct. This guy is a fish for calling a raise with J5, just a bad beat here.

"do you ever slowplay Aces at least preflop when you can guarantee at most 2 opponents?"
No.

[37offsuit]

The only time I'm very careful with AA on the flop is when a three flush with straight possibilities that could hit a hand that would call my preflop raise and I don't have the ace of that suit. So if it comes out J T 5 all the same suit, I'm check calling or check folding depending on the opponent and the bet size. If the person looks like they're betting a draw, I've set it up for a check raise on the turn if a non scary card falls, or a check fold if the worst card could fall (9 or Q of the suit). I don't check raise the flop because with two cards to come, a lot of people will call or raise all in if they have a great draw and might be right to do so with say an open ended up straight flush draw. If the turn misses you've got the perfect check raise opportunity. They now likely have you on a AK or AQ, something like that.

This might be considered weak/tight but you make the reads you have to in game in order to avoid getting broke when you know better.

[durron597]

Poker is all about making your opponent thinking your hand is better than his (when it isn't) or about making him think it's worse than yours (when it's in fact better). Thus, slowplaying AA will probably seem suspicious unless you play your hands slowly a lot. My favorite thing to do with AA is to reraise allin (unless it's a massive overbet of the pot).

As far as the J85 hand, depending on the size of the pot in relation to your stack, you can bet less than allin, and fold if you have a good read about "he would call with a set, fold if he missed, or raise with like AJ or somesuch", and he calls. If the pot is big, you can check, and again try to use a read if he checks behind (he typically slowplays strength), or if he bets an amount that usually indicates strength. You don't talk about suits; I like checking with AA on a nondangerous board (which this is if it's rainbow), and betting if it isn't. However, unless I have a really good read of the sort I described above, I too lose all my chips on this hand.

As far as the second hand goes, DON'T LIMP WITH AA. You lost all your chips because you limped with AA. If you have been stealing blinds, you might get hit with a resteal and when you push your AA, you make chips (yet another reason stealing is good /images/graemlins/grin.gif). But as T.J. Cloutiier says: "Don't go broke in an unraised pot." Overpair is not good enough to play hard in an unraised pot unless you know your opponents very well. You need at least top two (maybe top and bottom)/set/trips good kicker. I just won an SnG where I took an early big stack where I limped on the button with A7s for flush value, flop comes A57rb, I check behind, turn is 9, a guy bets, I raise, a big stack who checked reraises, I push, he calls, he turns over 97s for the turned two pair and I double up to over half the chips on the table. I had a read that he would have bet the flop with 86s (I had seen him bet an OESD and other draws earlier), but the point is, he went broke in an unraised pot with 2 pair.

Hope I didn't ramble too much, and made some sense. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[RollaJ]

One important rule to remember in NL is:
Will a lesser raise accomplish the same thing? If the blinds are 15-30 and the pot has 75 in it, and BB comes out betting pot, if you raise to 400 it will accomplish whatever an all-in bet would, if you get reraised then, you can fold (perhaps u call if there are multible draws)