Playing Pocket Aces Pre-Flop

Every poker player dreams of seeing those pocket aces in their hand pre-flop. While this does not happen very often, we are going to give you some advice and options on how to play Aces before the flop. I’m going to cover three ways to play pocket aces pre-flop.

1) Slow play them. This is the worst option when you have pocket aces before the flop. Slowing playing aces allows for weaker hands to see a flop. A lot of times you’ll see someone limp in with some small cards and hit a flop to beat your aces. Players slow play aces with hopes of “trapping” the other players and catch them later in the hand for a larger amount. While this might sound good, we don’t recommend it.

2) Bet and Raise Aggressively. This is the best way to play pocket aces pre-flop. Bet fairly large or raise any bets before the flop. If you get any callers, you know they have a solid hand but you can effectively get rid of all the “decent” hands by playing your aces aggressively. Sometimes everyone will fold and you might think, “what a waste of aces.” Well, remember, a win is a win at the poker table. Take your money and move on.

3) Go All In Every Time. This is the most extreme of the three options. Some players automatically go all-in or raise all-in with pocket aces every single time. Going all-in might not always be the most effective play as 95% of the time everyone will fold. It’s probably a better idea to bet aggressively and then later in the hand take your all-in opportunity after others have committed some chips.

So those are three options on how you can play pocket aces pre-flop. Remember, the probability of getting pocket aces is like 1 in 221. So when you do get them, play them appropriately and maximize the pots you win with your aces.

Tags: aces, aggressive, all in, pocket, Poker, pre-flop, slow play, strategy, trap

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.