Pocket Aces and a beginner

[Shillx]

And if he has a weak hand, you're still probably better knocking him out on the turn or forcing him to make a big, bad call. And if he has (or turns) a strong hand, the turn card may come bad and slow you down all by itself, and you'll be happy you didn't raise the flop.

This is fatal thinking in a hand like this. This isn't like having

5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] on a J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] flop.

-or-

6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on a K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] flop.

We know what the bad cards are in the above hands. We have no idea what the bad cards are in the AA hand (though we have an idea of what is good). Assume a king comes off on 4th street. Is that good or bad? Stove says it is bad, but not terrible. How about a queen? Stove is indifferent to that card eventhough it looks pretty scary. A nine is about the same as a queen according to PokerStove. The 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] puts us in the same place as the 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

There are going to be a decent # of cards that we don't want to see (any K/J/9 or 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]) and still more below average cards ([img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]/Q/9/8). The problem is that we can't seperate the bad cards from the scary ones. It is much better to wait when you have a idea of what really kills your equity. In this hand we know that our equity is huge on the flop, and that we are almost always boss. Worrying that we might be behind is terrible reason to not step on the gas pedal. Good for him if he flopped three queens this time. The vast majority of the time he will have a hand that is ready to payoff all bets.