Two Plus Two Older Archives - Slowplaying AA, higher variance but anything more?

Hi RR,

I haven't read all of the responses yet, so I apologize if this is redundant.

Limping in EP with AA is fine, and you got the bad scenario this time, in which 6 others saw a cheap flop.

Then, you get a terrific flop. Checking here is where you made your mistake, IMO. Here's the thing. I assume from your description of yourself that you're a tight player. Once a tight player puts in a large bet on this flop, people have got to take notice, especially if he limped in EP. Because of the lack of available draws, they will put you on 99, 66, AA, A9s, or A6s (in roughly that order) as soon as you, a tight player who limped early, put in over a $100 bet. That's OK, but because of this, you cost yourself money by checkraising. That's because your first major action into the pot will be of the size that sets off alarms. If, for example, someone bets 50 and you make it 150, they know you have a big hand, and they put in 50 to find out. But if you lead out for $50, someone with a decent Ace or bottom 2 pair, or (the very unlikely) Aces up may raise you that same $150 or so, at which point you could reraise, tipping the strength of your hand, but doing so after they put $150 into the pot.

As far as overall strategy goes, I agree with gomberg that you make more by fast-playing them pre-flop in general. That said, you must mix up your play sometimes. So, if you want to slowplay the Aces, I advise you to do it when you have position on an aggressive raiser who has raised enough pre-flop that you usually will be the only caller if you call. So, if a guy makes it 25 to go in the 5-10 game, I would tend to NOT SLOWPLAY them. But if he makes it 35 or more, then flat-calling him is a valid option.

The big key to slowplaying AA, IMO, is balancing 2 factors. Most importantly, you have to think about when you need to abort your slowplay, because the board came down ugly. So if a guy raises a little bigger than his normal pf raise (as many do with big pairs), and then the board comes down K Q 8, you might be better off cautiously calling down, rather than exploding on him as you had planned initially. The 2nd factor, though, is to have some heart, and realize that though your Aces may start to feel tenuous on some boards when your opponent seems very confident, you haven't revealed the strength of your hand yet, so your opponent can be confidently betting a 2nd best hand quite easily (and this, of course, is the goal when slowplaying AA).

That's all I got--tough hand this time.