When to slowplay aces (or maybe kings) in a NL tournament?
This is a bit of a general question but it has occured to me recently that as I move up and play some higher buy-in tournaments against better players there are likely more situations where playing aces straightforwardly is probably not the best play. I'm generally fairly aggressive when the blinds get big so I use the "do what they expect you to do" theory for the most part and play straightforardly. So I don't think I want to open limp AA very often but I think I should be working just calling raises into my preflop strategy a bit more instead of always reraising with AA/KK. What type of situations do you find are ideal for this? Obviously I don't want the stacks to be too deep or I risk getting myself broke, but if they're really short a push preflop will be autocalled so I need to be deep enough that they can fold to a reraise but not deep enough that I give them too big implied odds in cracking me. Generally I want to play them heads up as well but 3-way isn't a disaster. 4 or more I'm very uncomfortable. I will give one specific example to get the ball rolling. The button or CO has been stealing your blind aggressively, you've been mostly lettng him succeed, and you have a medium type stack (say 15xBB) and he has at least that much. He raises again on your BB. He is the type that is capable of folding to a reraise since you haven't shown the willingness to resteal yet (though he may suspect one is coming so he may call a few more hands then usual). He will probably continuation bet a good % of flops. Is this a spot where my default play should be to just call and CR the flop? I've tried it a few times but never with great results. Aginast particularly aggressive players I've tried calling then firing a probe bet on the flop and hope they come over the top committing themselves (again they tend to avoid my trap so maybe i need to be doing this more often with nothing or maybe I've been unlucky so far). I guess a lot of this is read dependant but I just want to see if I'm on the right track here since against normal weak players I just move in and get called by 22.
Mike
Mike
Comments
- In the situation you have described is tough, if you have a fairly aggressive player attacking your blinds your flat calling aces is to break him, maybe let him commit himself on the flop maybe you overbet the flop but your looking to let a player get way out of line then push him over with your hand (but you have to be up against the player who will commit himself)
- but Im sure in this case your looking to resteal with resteal hands, I would more want to resteal here and show your hand, your investing in alot of resteals on future hands, which may out weigh the one pot your on now
You only get aces every ~120 hands, which means you get something else every other hand, I like advertsiing aces as an investment in every other hand, so what does slow playing do for you? what does it mean when you 3xbet your next hand?
Unless you really feel you have an opportunity to break a player by doing so, I don't see any other advantages in slow playing aces.
In fact at higher levels, with two or three people in, you will have to make amazingly more difficult decisions when you see multiple people in at 2-3x BB and the flop is 784, or TT5, etc the likelyhood that your aces are good are small. You can discount K3s, but 78s, 44, 55 etc are very likely holdings. By flat calling in these situations you almost force yourself to hit a set, or face a very tough decision about a bluff on a fully bluffable pot.
If you opt to slowplay these, you have to be ready to dump these after the flop if you encounter much resistance. That is the problem for me. Ol' Red can testify to this.
Huh? I don't understand why there is a problem.
Against TT5 or 784 you bet about 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot...
I think I usually only slowplay these if it's a situation where I'm not afraid to get broke because I really need some action to build my stack. In this case I'm usually getting all-in on the flop no matter what unless for some reason I've let 3 or 4 people in and they all start showing shtrength. Slowplaying aces on deep stacks is trouble.
If I'm beat I lose a bunch of chips.
But are you suggesting you should call here with an overpair?
Are you suggesting you should fold?
Yes, and if you slow played the AA/KK preflop, your in big trouble when someone plays back at you. With no raise preflop trips or str are REAL possibilities so why put yourself in this situation?
Unless you think that you can get 'under' a very aggressive player, slow playing can kill you. Maybe in a cash game where you can set up Big Bluffs later by doing this even if you bust.
In the majority of cases, you raise.
If the blinds are either really high or *really* really low, limping has merit (in the former case, to break a PF raiser who is likely to get all in on the flop, in the latter case ....and when I say low blinds I mean 1st level of WSOP or something... you may be going to win a small - medium pot and/or hope for set over set. Naturally in this case, you have to be able to fold them if there's trouble.
Again, though, those plays are mostly for advanced players and if in doubt at all, you should just raise. It keeps it straightforward.
Ryan
Fourth hand of tournament, blinds 25/50 (dead SB), all stacks right around 10,000. UTG raises 200. UTG+1 raises 200. Folds to me in cut-off. I cold-call with :as :ac . BB folds, UTG calls. Pot is 1400.
Flop is :ad :9d :3s . UTG raises $400 and UTG+1 folds. I have no read on player, except that he probably isn't just a fish (knows at least a bit of poker theory). With the potential flush on board and no read, should I have slow-played the trips or raised. If raising, should I raise small, or price the draw to be a mistake (which I assume would be a raise of around $2000, which would give him ), or should I have raised to make drawing a mistake.
Just curious if the "correct" play is to risk scaring him out by protecting against the flush, or risking the turn and hoping for no diamond.
early, to put a little scare into the table. It can
sometimes work for you later in the tourney, especially if
they get thinking you always limp with big card. hehe
Funny, as I was writing this, I'm playing in the $10 on
stars. I raised in EP 4xBB ($120) with KK, and got a call,
an allin reraise, and another caller to that raise. Decided
it was worth the risk for $870. Flop came rag rag rag, and I
bet it out for $1200 more and took it down. lol
I would be happy to just take this pot right now with a nice raise. When I get too greedy my eyes usually don't see the miracle straight lurking around the corner after the turn and (say the 2 hits) and lose a lot to some joker who continued playing 45o for some small raise.
Ofcourse... this is the only time you want to slow play AA/KK when you can come in under another player and hide your strength. The intent is to break the player. Ofcourse you have to be very weary of a set, or A with KK.
The issue is ofcourse if the player is a maniac/very aggresive You could be in against Ax suited, or Sc so you have to be very careful of not trapping yourself with big pockets when the board comes with a str or flush. You do have some room to reraise a draw pot however, you can go broke if your not carefull. But you can easily go broke when you raise PF and this happens.
I would definately advertise this play as you want to stop a very aggressive player. If you come under with AA/KK the next time you call he will give you more credit for yuor hand. Allowing you to take down other pots. I think this is the more important role of slow playing big pairs. It sets up alot of play in future hands.
I think two huge factors here are position and the chips your opponent(s) have left. If you are short or even stacked, why not just jam your chips in while you have the best hand and take what you can. If you slow play AA and make a small raise a hands like 99, KJ, AQ, 10-10 come in cheap and if the flop comes K910 and there is potential for big trouble as AA is hard to lay down.
In my experiences with these hands I have found sucess when I have more chips than my opponenets and I attempt to suck out chips from my opponenets knowing they cannot bust me.
Just a thought.
A-A is a GREAT hand to win chips with.
Should you slow play? The answer is, of course, "it depends." You should try and win as much as you can with them and lose as little as possible when you are beat. Against most little-skilled opponents, go ahead and raise, they will call anyway. Against really tough opponents, mix up your play. You should not be afraid of a flop, heads up, if you are holding A-A. In the VAST majority of cases you will still be ahead.