NL going all-in with a pocket pair vs. an A

[tvdad]

Is it ever wise to push all-in with a pocket pair against a bigger stack who is known to make huge raises with a naked Ace?

I ask because it seems like every time I try it late in a tourney, the guy calls my all-in, pairs his Ace and I'm done. I should probably look back at my hand history to get the exact numbers over a long period of time, but in the last week alone I have been knocked out 14 of the 17 times I tried it because an A hit the board and I didn't improve.

Is it better to just call the big raise and see the flop? I don't want to start mucking KK and QQ preflop every time I think the guy is raising with an A, but I would have been much better off in my recent tourneys if I had done so.

I actually played an entire tourney today without ever getting dealt an A or a pair. About an hour in my stack had gotten pretty small so I pushed all-in when it was raised to me and I had KK. You guessed it, an A hit the board and I'm out. Again.

Maybe I'm just crying over an unfortunate losing streak, but I never see so many Aces hit the board as when I'm all-in with a big pair. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Now taking the other side of the argument, should I be making huge raises, even going all-in preflop, with a naked Ace? That never seemed like a good strategy to me, but it does appear to work quite well.

T

[Al_Capone_Junior]

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I ask because it seems like every time I try it late in a tourney, the guy calls my all-in, pairs his Ace and I'm done. I should probably look back at my hand history to get the exact numbers

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This would be a collosal waste of time, going over hand histories to lament on bad beats done passed.

If you have KK, push in all your chips, and someone else has AQ, A4o, AK or whatever ace other than AA, and you lose, whatever, you still got the better end of the deal. Now if you have QQ and they have AK, it's much closer, as I am sure you already know, around 6:5 that you'll win.

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I don't want to start mucking KK and QQ preflop every time I think the guy is raising with an A

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This of course is wrong. If you think he has Ax and you have KK or QQ then you WANT to get it all in while he's got a three outer.

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should I be making huge raises, even going all-in preflop, with a naked Ace? That never seemed like a good strategy to me, but it does appear to work quite well.


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Generally NO, not until near the end when you're desperate. People that raise all-in with A8o are generally morons.

al