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Maximizing value with pocket Aces

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A problem that many people have is not knowing how to get the maximum profit out of a hand. Too often players will get overanxious... excited because of the hand they have... and end up costing themselves valuable chips they can use later on down the road. One of the biggest keys in tournament poker is putting yourself in a position to where you can handle getting unlucky or having an opportunity to get lucky because of your stack size. Here's an example of a hand with pocket aces and how thinking about all the possible alternatives can lead to extra chips in your stack.

In this particular tournament at Full Tilt Poker, 180 players had started and 100 were left. The average stack was approximately 7500.

Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2006/05/11 - 23:42:23 (ET)
Table '24183629 10' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: (5040 in chips)
Seat 2: (11665 in chips)
Seat 3: (4745 in chips)
Seat 4: (9155 in chips)
Seat 5: (5735 in chips)
Seat 6: (10015 in chips)
Seat 7: ME (5330 in chips)
Seat 8: (4945 in chips)
Seat 9: (7905 in chips)
Seat 4: posts small blind 75
Seat 5: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ME {A-Clubs}{A-Diamonds}
Seat 6: folds
ME: raises 300 to 450

A little background. In this tournament, I had just raised the hand before with Q-10s and folded to an all in re-raise from Seat 3. Same raise. Tilting right?

Seat 8: calls 450
Seat 9: folds
Seat 1: folds
Seat 2: folds
Seat 3: folds
Seat 4: raises 1950 to 2400
Seat 5: folds

Most people would automatically move all in here. But let's think about that for a second. If Seat 8 had not called my initial raise, it would be an easy push because Seat 4 is obviously not going to fold. But here, we still do have seat 8 left in the hand and we do not want to give him the opportunity to make the correct decision... that is we don't want to tell him that he is beat and that he should fold. We WANT him to call. You should not mind taking A-A up against two opponents in this chip position and want to try and accumulate as many chips as possible here.

ME: calls 1950
Seat 8: calls 1950

*** FLOP *** 3h 7c 5h
Seat 4: bets 3000

If it was checked, then betting all in is the automatic play but because Seat 4 does our work for us, we're of course going to call and hope that Seat 8 comes along for the ride (and since he called two raises pre-flop, the chances are that he will).

ME: calls 2930 and is all-in
Seat 8: calls 2545 and is all-in
*** TURN *** 3h 7c 5h - 10H
*** RIVER *** 3h 7c 5h Th - 8h
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Seat 4: shows Jd Js (a pair of Jacks)
ME: shows Ac Ad (a pair of Aces)
ME collected 770 from side pot
Seat 8: shows Qc Qd (a pair of Queens)
ME collected 14985 from main pot

I asked a player, whose game I admire and respect greatly, his thoughts on this hand to get more insight. Here is what he had to say:

Chip dynamics, table dynamics, and a bad pre-flop raise by mr. J-J is what makes a flat call a good play here. You stated you felt you would get a call from the player behind him, hence the flat call. You are committing all your chips to this pot regardless of what flops because you have to commit 1/2 your stack to this pot pre-flop. So there is no calling for implied value here by the other player. The reason you can flat call here is because you only have 4k left, and it is 2k to call, so your money is going in on any flop regardless, so you are trying to maximize value from this hand.

Frankly, if I am sitting behind you, and you call off 1/2 your stack to a re-raise, my queens are in the muck quicker than I can even think about making a call, but I wasn't in the hand. You also need to know who you are playing against, I would guess if I was in mr. Q-Q's position, you would have moved in, table dynamic makes this play more viable, because in this situation, if you are playing against either good savvy players, or players that know you pretty well, the flat call pretty much gives away your hand, where as a push in your position could be a much wider range of hands.

Let's say for example, the small blind re-raiser has 9k, you have 10k, and mr. Q-Q has 13k, and the blind structure is the same, then a flat call in your situation is simply said, a bad play. Here you do want to try to isolate the re-raiser into a heads up situation, because now mr. Q-Q is calling 2k getting nearly 3:1 on his money, with huge implied value if he does hit his hand. Now there is a much wider range of hands mr. Q-Q may be holding here because of the implied value, and it makes the A-A much more difficult to play after the flop than in scenario #1 where you know your chips are going in on the flop regardless. I am all for a flat call and maximizing value in hand #1, the amount of chips I have make it the correct play, but in the 2nd scenario I have scripted, a flat call would be a bad play in my opinion. Chip position and implied value have a huge impact on when this play is viable, or a bad play as well.

So as my friend pointed out, how you maximize value with big hands like this is dependent on many factors. This article is not saying you should always slow play pocket aces. That would be a mistake. What the article is saying, however, is to not be so quick to move all in or make a large re-raise when your initial raise has been raised. If you do that, you might be leaving some money on the table.

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