Saturday, November 17, 2007

Every Time

You would think I'd learn.

Literally, every time I'm in this particular situation, the same outcome results, yet I keep making the same choices that keep leading to the same unsavory outcome.

I'm in the small blind with AA. It folds to me. My only opponent is the big blind. I flat call and slowplay preflop, then come out betting on the flop. My opponent pops me back on the turn, and on a seemingly innocuous board, I go to the river to see I've been beat with 2 pair, 10-4.

While the deciding hands differ, my fate is the same. I let a junk hand see the flop cheap, and paid the price. That 10-4 should have never seen the flop, and even if I raised and he called, the fault would at least be on him for making an awful call than on me for trying to get tricky against the donkeys of the world.

4 Comments:

  1. sttrow said...
    Hi, You've been TAGGED - see my blog for details ;-)
    Unknown said...
    Never slow play aces. Never.
    Zeem said...
    I tend to avoid words like "never" when discussing strategy. A raise would look normal here, so your aces are well disguised if you raise. The limp would look suspicious from some players, normal for others. In deep stack situations, blind vs. blind is tough to play out of position, so pot size control is critical. In those cases a healthy mix of limps is fine. If you rarely limp and then tend to limp with aces, then you have a major leak.

    Hope to see you in December
    Jarret D. Morrow said...
    Hi, very impressive blog site. I am not a huge fan of slow playing in certain situations. I've seen it all... Slow play pocket aces with a set on the flop and lose to runner runner suited cards for a four card flush.

    I prefer to aggressively play strong hands. In your situation, you have to accept that though you have the aces, unfortunately, you're not likely to cash in given that you are on the sb and everyone except for the bb has folded.

    I find with aces, I would rather punish a junk hand for seeing the flop by raising preflop. As well, if I were only playing vs the bb, I would probably raise preflop and bet hard on the flop. If you smooth call with pocket aces and bet the flop, if the other player simply folds then all you've done is steal his blind anyway and risk letting him junk you out by giving him a free look at the flop.

    Here's my blog site with some thoughts on different hand situations: http://jarretspoker.blogspot.com/

Post a Comment