Getting Value from AA First to Act.

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Dont limp, you get destroyed by 2 pairs this way and getting AA cracked is the worst. I like the 3x bet...you pick up any strong A or lower pp, sometimes KQ, but its a pretty safe play. Also, to make the most money, you should be playing tables that have the highest players/flop % that you can find...Switch around and look for good tables where your AA will get payed off.

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You can limp reraise AA very nicely. Also you only get destroyed by two-pairs and the like, if you regularly stack off with AA after you limped it, and nobody raised (I dont do this).

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You just like to pick on me, dont you fuzz? lol, in my experience, Ive learned to not limp unless i have a good read on the table and know that I will have another chance to raise. I like to make sure I play my AA in 2-4 player pots...no more.

I hate the idea of a limp raise b/c it completely gives away your hand. Everyone and their mother is going to know you have aces or kings. The only person who is going to play with you after the flop is a person who knows they have you crushed and is just figuring out how much they can milk you for. Just make your standard raise and hope someone plays with you.

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I hate the idea of a limp raise b/c it completely gives away your hand. Everyone and their mother is going to know you have aces or kings. The only person who is going to play with you after the flop is a person who knows they have you crushed and is just figuring out how much they can milk you for. Just make your standard raise and hope someone plays with you.

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I agree

[nietzreznor]

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I hate the idea of a limp raise b/c it completely gives away your hand. Everyone and their mother is going to know you have aces or kings. The only person who is going to play with you after the flop is a person who knows they have you crushed and is just figuring out how much they can milk you for. Just make your standard raise and hope someone plays with you.

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Frankly, at low stakes games, I think this is untrue. There are enough players (especially at $25 and $50) who will call with bad hands.

But if you have semi-observant opponents who always fold here because they KNOW you have AA/KK, you a) still pick up the $$ from the raise when they fold, and b) you can start to make this play with other hands (JTs, perhaps) and steal more because your hand is so obvious.

[flopking]

A tough spot to play any hand is UTG... much less AA. On passive tables, you must raise to thin/value... On any table where there are aggressive deep stacks behind you... limp from UTG. If someone raises 4xBB (a reasonable amount) you can push preflop and you'll pick up 5-6BB, with your AI, even if you don't get called. The downside to this approach is if there is no raise, it requires you to throw away your hand prolly 60% of the time in a multi-way pot... if you flop uber-top set, your hand is extremely well disguised and any other set, or two pair is gonna pay you off,,,

Yes! this is exactly right. At $25 and $50, there are plenty of gunslinging fools who think you are just putting a play on them with any two cards and I have seen AK, 99, TT, and JJ all push in response to my limp/reraise.

And like the poster here said, even if lp raiser folds to your reraise, at least you took down his raise.

Postflop, the situation is favorable, too. You have to a certain extent, to an observant player, telegraphed that you have a monster pair; if he plays back at you postflop, you can be much more comfortable folding a lot of the time, because you know that he knows that you are on a big pair.

I'm not saying always slowplay your aces utg, but I don't see the postflop play or telegraphing as being big downsides. The downsides to slowplaying are letting in lots of limpers who can outdraw you and taking down a small pot when nobody hits the flop.

That's why you should rarely slow play aces. But rarely means that sometimes you should. Anyway, wait for a maniac to be acting behind you; there's plenty of them out there.

[jonnyUCB]

The best thing to do is widen your range when opening from EP. Are you raising AQ/AK here? ATs/AJs/midpp/small sc ocassionally? Of course this is very table dependent but on the tight/passive games where you are just collecting the blinds you can usually do the same with the more marginal, non-pair hands. If the table isn't respect pf raises then bomb away with your aces.

I think this is a better solution than limping with them preflop.

[chollowa]

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If you're in late position, you could make an argument for 3.5x BB if you're opening.

Raising 3x BB in SSNL is not good.

If you just take the blinds down every time you're either experiencing some bad variance or more likely you're not raising with other hands often enough.

What is your PFR?

Ryan

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I'm not running PT right now.

I single table the $25 NL on Party. Some I'm playing extremely low stakes.

[bobman0330]

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A tough spot to play any hand is UTG... much less AA. On passive tables, you must raise to thin/value... On any table where there are aggressive deep stacks behind you... limp from UTG. If someone raises 4xBB (a reasonable amount) you can push preflop and you'll pick up 5-6BB, with your AI, even if you don't get called. The downside to this approach is if there is no raise, it requires you to throw away your hand prolly 60% of the time in a multi-way pot... if you flop uber-top set, your hand is extremely well disguised and any other set, or two pair is gonna pay you off,,,

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I hate this thinking. AA should be played to bust people, not to steal 5-6 BBs. Just raise UTG, and hope someone has enough hand to reraise you.

[chollowa]

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The best thing to do is widen your range when opening from EP. Are you raising AQ/AK here? ATs/AJs/midpp/small sc ocassionally? Of course this is very table dependent but on the tight/passive games where you are just collecting the blinds you can usually do the same with the more marginal, non-pair hands. If the table isn't respect pf raises then bomb away with your aces.

I think this is a better solution than limping with them preflop.

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EP I usually raise AA-10's wired and AK-A10s, the rest I just sit on. This is really table dependant though sometimes I'll limp AJ-10 (s or o) in early position I usually throw away low-mid suited connectors and limp KQ and KJ both suited and off.