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By raising, aren't I just giving drawing hands better odds to stay in the hand after the flop by increasing the size of the pot?
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Well, if you don't raise, you are giving them infitite odds to outflop you.
As far as the 'early position' question. You will tend to lose more when your big hand does get run down and you are in early position, and win less. Start charging the chasers early.
As far as AA 'playing better' against few opponents, I think you are confusing winning percentage with value. An example on RGP a few days ago...
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On Aug 12 2004 2:01PM, Aaron wrote:
> I disagree. Raising from early position with Aces in loose/passive games
> almost guarantees that a number of people are going to call anyway to see
> the flop and try to outdraw you. Maybe you wouldn't have called another
> buck from the BB with 7-2, but I have seen many that will. And then you
> are still screwed, but for a dollar more than you were before.
no, No, NO, NO!
This is the same kind of attitude shared by the whole "How can you
possibly beat Low Limit?" crowd. If you were 8 handed, utg with AA, and
knew everyone of them would call your raise, OF COURSE YOU RAISE. Yes you
will lose more often, but take this random sampling of hands that might
call (72o is BB and decided to cap for the hell of it...)
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=445929
pokenum -h ac as - kh kd - ah ks - 2d 2c - 2s 7d - jh th - 6s 7s -
5c 5d
Holdem Hi: 376992 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ac 121738 32.29 253808 67.32 1446 0.38 0.324
Kd Kh 36789 9.76 338906 89.90 1297 0.34 0.099
Ks Ah 11605 3.08 363201 96.34 2186 0.58 0.033
2c 2d 21834 5.79 354601 94.06 557 0.15 0.058
2s 7d 402 0.11 366260 97.15 10330 2.74 0.014
Jh Th 75680 20.07 300755 79.78 557 0.15 0.201
7s 6s 44820 11.89 321842 85.37 10330 2.74 0.132
5c 5d 52165 13.84 324270 86.02 557 0.15 0.139
From every dollar that goes into the pot, $.32 is yours. How is getting
more money in the pot a bad thing? Or put another way, you are 3BB + in EV
preflop just by raising and getting 7 calls.
Yes you could get an ugly flop and have to fold them. Of course every time
you have AA and the flop comes A22, someone could have 22.
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Put another way, if some one is going to try and chase down my rockits, they are going to pay to do it. Now in NL, where you can excercise some real leverage on the flop if someone catches a piece, slow playing preflop has some value.
Similarly those more aggresive limit games where you can be pretty sure someone will raise behind you, limping ep with aces can be nice cause you can either get true dead money into the pot (mp limpers reasonably folding instead of calling 2 more bets cold), or making a huge mistake and putting 3 bets in preflop while way behind.