Now HERE'S how you play aces!

[dalecooper]

***** Hand History for Game 1997888597 *****
$25 NL Hold'em - Wednesday, May 04, 12:34:33 EDT 2005
Table Table 36759 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Bobuska ( $24 )
Seat 5: shipit_06 ( $19.52 )
Seat 7: foolsfortune ( $41 )
Seat 9: fredEZ24 ( $8.1 )
Seat 10: Stealthy11 ( $57.92 )
Seat 6: stressball10 ( $30.1 )
Seat 3: UnoMEazJP ( $24.4 )
Seat 2: MASTRR ( $10.75 )
Seat 8: RICKSTRICK2 ( $9.5 )
Seat 4: RiverChasen ( $8.75 )
RICKSTRICK2 posts small blind [$0.1].
fredEZ24 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to stressball10 [ Kh Qh ]
Stealthy11 folds.
Bobuska folds.
foolsfortune: nice call
MASTRR calls [$0.25].
UnoMEazJP calls [$0.25].
RiverChasen folds.
shipit_06 calls [$0.25].
shipit_06: ya u had me scared
stressball10 raises [$0.75].
foolsfortune calls [$0.75].
RICKSTRICK2 calls [$0.65].
fredEZ24 folds.
MASTRR calls [$0.5].
UnoMEazJP folds.
shipit_06 calls [$0.5].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, Kc, 7c ]
RICKSTRICK2 bets [$4].
MASTRR folds.
shipit_06 folds.
stressball10 raises [$9].
foolsfortune folds.
RICKSTRICK2 is all-In [$4.75]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ks ]
** Dealing River ** [ 4s ]
stressball10 shows [ Kh, Qh ] three of a kind, kings.
RICKSTRICK2 doesn't show [ Ad, Ac ] two pairs, aces and kings.
stressball10 wins $0.25 from side pot #1 with three of a kind, kings.
stressball10 wins $20.7 from the main pot with three of a kind, kings.
RICKSTRICK2 has left the table.

[DoGGz]

Right, so you bad beat him, what's the point of this? Anyone can get lucky.

[dalecooper]

Right, so you bad beat him, what's the point of this? Anyone can get lucky.

The point is he horribly misplayed the hand and caused his own bad beat. If he'd played like he had aces I would have laid down. If he re-raised me before the flop I'd put him on aces, kings, or at least AK; and then (assuming I called his re-raise), if he bets out on the flop I'd give him credit for a strong hand and probably fold.

The other point is that sitting at a table with a short stack can cause things like this too. Ordinarily with an opponent betting out like that on the flop I'd think over my options and maybe raise, sometimes flat call, sometimes fold (depending on the opponent and some other factors)... but in this case he had only $5 more and I couldn't see folding top pair second kicker with only that amount of money left to worry about. So I just raised him all in and put an unintentional bad beat on him.

Yes, I sucked out, but there are lessons to be learned here whether I won the hand or not.

[face]

I think you got outplayed. Getting people to lay down potential second best hands before they become second best doesn't seem smart, to me. Getting all your money in with the best hand against a 2nd best hand drawing thin with a deceptive line, does. I might be missing something....

[dalecooper]

I think you got outplayed. Getting people to lay down potential second best hands before they become second best doesn't seem smart, to me. Getting all your money in with the best hand against a 2nd best hand drawing thin with a deceptive line, does. I might be missing something....

No, you're right about his hand vs. mine. That doesn't really explain limping in to a pot with a bunch of limpers already in it, and a raise ahead of you, when you've got undoubtedly the best hand and will be first to act on the flop. That's just retarded play - he wasn't outplaying anyone at the table right at that moment. And while he was indeed favored over me on the flop, he has no one to blame but himself if someone else had flopped something better. My point isn't so much that I beat him, but that he really botched this up badly. It's this kind of player that inevitably complains every time his aces get cracked, and doesn't understand that he's putting himself in situations where his aces are no longer favorites.

[face]

Look, limping AA is risky. If he got beat on the flop, and it was rather obvious, and he still lost his stack, he's to blame. However, if you can play the flop and the players, it's not a cardinal sin to have more than one person along with AA. In fact, though your odds of winning go down as more people enter the hand, AA is the BEST multiway hand there is. It holds up more often against more people seeing more cards than any other holding. Second, if you know someone with TPSK on a board when 2 pair is very unlikely (this was a perfect flop for slowplayed aces against a raiser) will call off most of their stack on their relatively weak holding, slowplaying AA is not a bad idea. Do it all the time? No. Do it most of the time? No. Do it if you can't fold when you're obviously beat on the flop? No. Do it against all sorts of opponents? No. Never slowplay aces? That's just uncreative.

[dalecooper]

Hey, I agree with you - there are times to slowplay aces. Sometimes you have to do it just because you don't want to be too predictable. It helps immensely if you're a better post-flop player than all your potential opponents, and can sort out when to bail on a hand. It can be very effective in short-handed games, and deadly in heads-up play.

But let's not kid ourselves. In a low stakes ring game with eight million people seeing the flop, this is a bad way to play the hand. You have to be a post-flop genius to make profit out of this. Even though the aces are indeed a good hand against four or five random other hands, this particular imbecile was going to lose every cent he had any time someone flopped something better than him. His short stack and flop bet left him with no maneuvering room; any raise was going to put him all-in, more than likely.

We all know (or should all know) that the reason you raise premium hands pre-flop is not just to get more money in the pot, but to limit the field and make your post-flop decisions easier, and therefore make the hand more profitable for you. If you're the kind of player who limps with aces and then calls down any bets with them because you have no idea what your opponents have, you're probably that rare player who loses money with aces... or at least, doesn't get nearly as much EV out of them as you could be getting. That's simple fact, and I don't think there's any way to spin this hand to make it look like the guy was making optimal decisions anywhere along the line. His bet on the flop looks pretty much like "God I hope no one in this huge field flopped anything better than a pair"... he was lucky that I didn't, but unlucky about the rest.

[face]

Given that his preflop play was suboptimal, your post-flop play was worse. "He'd have raised with KK, AA, or AK..." you were thinking, as you dubbed TPSK the nuts. Because people think like that, and will not let go of top pair, slowplaying AA becomes higher EV. I am absolutely not saying this guy is a pro or played the hand in a way it should be played every time. It's definitely more likely to get sucked out on with this line. But given he did limp, and given the flop was K72 -- no straight possibilities, and very unlikely 2 pair, frush draw to tempt the fishies -- and given that he bet into the raiser getting the desired result -- a reraise over the top with a hand that was way behind and was easy to read -- I have a hard time with you calling this guy an idiot or holding his play up for ridicule.

[dalecooper]

Given that his preflop play was suboptimal, your post-flop play was worse. "He'd have raised with KK, AA, or AK..." you were thinking, as you dubbed TPSK the nuts. Because people think like that, and will not let go of top pair, slowplaying AA becomes higher EV. I am absolutely not saying this guy is a pro or played the hand in a way it should be played every time. It's definitely more likely to get sucked out on with this line. But given he did limp, and given the flop was K72 -- no straight possibilities, and very unlikely 2 pair, frush draw to tempt the fishies -- and given that he bet into the raiser getting the desired result -- a reraise over the top with a hand that was way behind and was easy to read -- I have a hard time with you calling this guy an idiot or holding his play up for ridicule.

If I cut off the rest of the hand following the flop cards coming down, would it make more sense to you what I'm talking about? My problem with his play is mainly what he decided to do before the flop.

I am not arguing that MY play here was great. Far from it. But the easiest people to misplay against are people who regularly make sub-optimal decisions - people who are completely new to hold 'em being the main example. I didn't put him on a better hand than mine - my mistake. But given the way he played it, I'm curious, would YOU put him on a better hand than top pair/second kicker? Would you call, raise, or fold on that flop? Frankly I think almost any aggressive player would make the move I made there, and I don't feel even slightly bad about laying a 5 out beat on the guy. It was an error in judgement on my part, but (I believe) an understandable one. HIS play however, I do not understand.

If he'd had a bigger stack I would have been more cautious here; probably raised him on the flop and see how he plays back at me. A re-raise, I probably fold the hand. It's hard to make those kind of judgements and get that much information, though, when he's only got enough left in his stack to match the pot, and I have good reasons to think I'm ahead of him.

[dalecooper]

I also disagree with the idea that the EV of his aces went up because of the way I played it. He's pretty much going to call off his stack on any flop except maybe three suited cards in a row. Given that, he's going into a five way pot here with a hand that will hold up maybe 40% of the time against 4 random hands. 60% of the time he'll go broke; 40% of the time let's assume he'll win the pot plus double the remainder of his chips off one opponent (which is what happened here). The pot as of the flop was about $4, and he stands to gain $9 more than that because that's all he has.

So 2 times out of 5 he makes $13. 3 times out of 5 he loses $9. That's basically a play with no positive or negative expectation - pretty much break even.

I'm also assuming here that any hand that would beat him by the river will call whatever bet he lays down on the flop. In $25 NL, and with him being short-stacked, that's a fair assumption - unless he pushes all in on the flop. A pot-sized bet won't drive out any flush draw, OESD, top pair, or two pair at these limits. Even if you want to fudge the figures in his favor, the play barely nets a positive expectation - with aces, a hand that is 80% against any other individual hand. He should have to try not to make money with this hand, and yet he's coming very close to doing that, just by playing it this way.

[Borax]

I have to aggree with dalecooper here. You don't want that many callers seeing the flop with your AA. He should have reraised the flop to scare out or take the pot preflop.

[face]

Absolutely... There were way too many people in the hand. His play was creative at best, terrible at worst preflop. Most of this argument has been, on my side, an effort to stand up for occasionally taking multiway pots with AA, and against the dogmatic if-you-don't-push-preflop-with-AA-you're-slowplaying which I've seen around here too often. If this was his usual line, and he couldn't lay down postflop, it's absolutely horrible. If this is how he played AA 1/10th of the time, and could easily muck the hand with a very unfavorable flop or a lot of action, and was playing against decent players who might pay off his overpair this way but not for a big raise preflop, it's arguably reasonable and there are some sound arguments which *could* underlie the play.

All that said, the guy probably had no idea what he was doing, and made an accidently +EV play in this case (although he got sucked out on, he got him money in with far the best of it). I've often said win small or lose big with AA -- but it's not a hothouse flower hand, and playing it scared or obvious all the time is not the best way to get value from the hand. I would reraise here every time at a 25$NL, especially knowing that 2 or 3 will come along with me for a couple more bucks.

Meh. I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying I'm wrong. The guy made a bad(ish) play, and should've reraised. However, a ginormous reraise was also not called for or necessary. If there was an amount which would cull the field to 2 opponents, I think that is the amount he should've raised. Had he done so, I'm sure you would've gotten out of his way, and some other maroon might pay him off, with a big flop bet.

[megadeath]

his play wasn't bad at all, albeit he had a small stack, he put his money in when he had a dominated position, how was that a bad play against him? While he did let too may people for comfort along for the ride, the flop was perfect for him. I play .5 / 1 ring games all the time and when people raise 3 bucks in mid position and i see me and possibly only one other person coming along, i just "call" with aces and kings. People like you jam the pot with TPGK or TPTK and just give me money, there are quite a few hand histories that i have stored in which i played AA dangerously. Sometimes you do have to ditch it when you know your beat, but playing aces, and not re-raising (like all the books say) profit when the stacks are deeper and you are a good post-flop player.
I see nothing wrong with his play

[Greedo017]

i think what face was getting at at first was, while a lot of the time limping aces is a bad move, and the people who do it are terrible, this is not exactly the perfect example of someone doing it poorly. Knowing and assuming nothing else about the person or how they places aces, you could say they didn't do terribly here.

[dalecooper]

i think what face was getting at at first was, while a lot of the time limping aces is a bad move, and the people who do it are terrible, this is not exactly the perfect example of someone doing it poorly. Knowing and assuming nothing else about the person or how they places aces, you could say they didn't do terribly here.

I disagree... the post-flop results have nothing to do with his pre-flop decisions. Set aside everything that happened after the flop arrived - and in fact, set aside the flop itself. Before that point, he called a small raise, under the gun, in a pot with a number of limpers already in... basically he knew he was going to see the flop with at least three or four others (maybe even more - there were two surprising folds after he called), and he would be first to act. On basically any flop without an ace on it, he would have to lead out with the bet he did (pot-sized) which was half his stack. If anyone raised him (regardless of their holdings - could be anything) he'd call, going all-in, whether he was behind or not. This is not a good way to play any hand, even one as strong as aces. It's throwing caution to the wind. You invite that many to see the flop, then you're basically going all-in against the field and hoping to do better than break-even. As I already pointed out above, it's not likely.

Again, I have nothing against creative play or the occasional slowplay of a premium hand. I do it myself at times, although sometimes I kick myself when it doesn't turn out as hoped. But in a full ring with a lot of limpers and you being first to act, this is unquestionably the worst possible way to play the best possible starting hand.

Put it another way: if he re-raises here, he limits the field (which increases his chance of winning the pot and makes post-flop play much easier) and gets more money in the pot (assuming it's not a nuclear re-raise). What argument can there be against that? The reasons you might have to slowplay aces would be avoiding predictability - not a big priority in a low stakes ring game with people coming and going - and/or trap someone with a lesser hand into doubling you up - which works best when you are in a short-handed game, or the field is already limited to one or two opponents. He wasn't going to accomplish anything positive in this situation by just calling a raise with aces. Now, he might have if the initial raise had been a bigger one that chased off most of the other players. If he was going to take a flop with just me and him, maybe one other player as well, there's a reasonable argument for trapping - although if the flop comes KQJ he's in a lot of trouble. If I had raised to say $1.50 and everyone but him folded, then I think you could make a case that smooth-calling my raise was a fine play, as long as he's a good post-flop player.

[dalecooper]

his play wasn't bad at all, albeit he had a small stack, he put his money in when he had a dominated position, how was that a bad play against him?

Re-read my posts please. We're concerned with this part of the hand history:

***** Hand History for Game 1997888597 *****
$25 NL Hold'em - Wednesday, May 04, 12:34:33 EDT 2005
Table Table 36759 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Bobuska ( $24 )
Seat 5: shipit_06 ( $19.52 )
Seat 7: foolsfortune ( $41 )
Seat 9: fredEZ24 ( $8.1 )
Seat 10: Stealthy11 ( $57.92 )
Seat 6: stressball10 ( $30.1 )
Seat 3: UnoMEazJP ( $24.4 )
Seat 2: MASTRR ( $10.75 )
Seat 8: RICKSTRICK2 ( $9.5 )
Seat 4: RiverChasen ( $8.75 )
RICKSTRICK2 posts small blind [$0.1].
fredEZ24 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to stressball10 [ Kh Qh ]
Stealthy11 folds.
Bobuska folds.
foolsfortune: nice call
MASTRR calls [$0.25].
UnoMEazJP calls [$0.25].
RiverChasen folds.
shipit_06 calls [$0.25].
shipit_06: ya u had me scared
stressball10 raises [$0.75].
foolsfortune calls [$0.75].
RICKSTRICK2 calls [$0.65].
fredEZ24 folds.
MASTRR calls [$0.5].
UnoMEazJP folds.
shipit_06 calls [$0.5].


...the rest is incidental. (Winning poker is not results-oriented; it's about making the best possible decision for that scenario regardless of what happens next.)

[sejje]

I don't play my aces that way, but you're contradicting yourself dale.

He got his money in with the best hand, and got someone else to match it with a much worse hand. The result was unlucky in that you hit a five-outer. Being results-oriented is saying that he led someone to suck out on him. I lead a lot of flush-draws into that same exact scenario, and I'll do it the rest of my life if I can. And they have twice as many outs as you did.

Anyway, I see short-stacks do this a lot. I believe they're trying to let a couple of people hit something and get involved in a big pot and gamble with the rest of their stack.