I play 1/2nl holdem. Recently when I had a deep stack, I pushed all in with pocket Aces and have loss big pots. This seems to be happening a lot, I do not mind losing when my stack is small, or one regular buy in, but losing when I am deep stack, does hurt. It takes me a while to get a deep stack and even though the Math says I will win X amount of times with Aces, I do not like it when I am deep stack and lose. My goal now is to slow down and play it like it was AJ, and if the pot gets too big preflop with a lot of callers, just fold, unless its only around one buy in to call.

If that’s the case you should just pick up and stop playing and rebuy later for a smaller amount. Folding aces preflop or playing them too passively is awful.

Well I'll never be folding AA preflop in a cash game. The day I do that or anyone does that is the day they should just quit playing. The day anyone isn't willing to get it all in preflop with the best hand is the day they should ask them shelves WTF they're doing and seriously question why they're even bothering to play anymore.

Hell I can even be pretty nitty at times(for a micro/low stakes player) as I've folded AK, KK, QQ and JJ preflop........very rarely. I mean what else can you do with all those hands above when facing a raise, re-raise, 4bet re-raise and then an all-in raise by the 4 players ahead of you(all with deep stacks), they all have VPIP's of less then 17 and the ALL-IN guy is under 10 VPIP? Not a Pro but Pro-tip even in micro stakes the guy with a VPIP under 10 has AA 100% of the time in this spot.


Cheers!!!

If you're winning but playing with a large percentage of your bankroll in play, you should just cash out and either come back later if you can and start with a max buy in or if it's the only game just come back another time if you have too.

Playing several hundred bb's deep is also different than playing 100 bb's deep so it's even more of a reason to cash out now and lock up a good win. You might not get felted with aces but you can still lose you're stack if you over play other hands while deep too.

If you're that stoneless to the point you're folding A-A preflop you're playing the wrong game... try checkers or tic tac toe

Are you pushing Pre-Flop?
Did you lose Heads-Up or multi-way?
How did the hands play out before you pushed?

What is 'deep' to you may not be deep to another Player, or Players who want to gamble .. knowing that you have AA/KK.

There are many threads/posts on this site that advise that if you feel at any point during your session that you aren't playing your best, then you need to cash out no matter how good the game. While it's not advisable, you may need to cash out when your stack reaches a certain point no matter if you have 'scheduled' more time to play. The only other option is to play differently .. and make sure that you are self-aware of those adjustments. I will tell you though, I've played plenty of 'regrettable' sessions where I tried to go on cruise control and ride out the rest of the night only to see my stack heavily damaged along the way.

There's no 'real' poker Player here that will not admit that adjustments are made for deep stack poker, but those same folks will also probably never back down from AA Pre-Flop either.

Some (lots) of your thoughts are emotionally and results based. If you are going to play serious poker you need to know that you will play the game 'the right' way no matter the result. Are you NEVER winning any of these big hands? That seems impossible .. so now you are REALLY deep stacked, let's say with 9 Buy-ins in your stack, eh? How will that make you feel?

We need to see the hands .. if you are shoving 2x the pot into sets multi-way then you need to learn more about playing deep and make those adjustments. If you are getting AA v JJ v 9Ts Pre-Flop then you should suggest that the three of you get your own table and run it 10-15 times each and every night. GL

You should NEVER fold AA preflop in a cash game. Realize though that if you get multiple callers you may wind up not being a favorite to win. Still, it is a profitable call even if you are not a favorite. As an extreme example, suppose you shove AA at a table with nine opponents who will call with any two. Your AA va 9 random hands has an equity of about 33%. Clearly you will lose more often than you win in this extreme example, but remember you are getting 9:1 odds on the call — you only have to win 10% of the time to break even.

Of course your realistic situations are not that extreme, but the point stands. You may not always win, but you are passing up an enormous amount of EV if you fold AA. Interestingly spots do exist where folding AA pre is correct, just not in a cash game. Only in tournaments and specifically in a satellite tournament can such a spot occur. That is because satellites have a flat payout - you either win a seat to the main tournament or you win nothing. Suppose you are six handed in a sat that pays five seats. You are the bb with AA. You have a 60bb stack, the SB has a 65 bb stack and the others have 20BB or less. Everyone folds to the SB who shoves. Folding is clear here. You may have as much as a 20% chance of busting without much of an increase in your chance of winning a seat when your aces hold. Your chances of not getting the seat are almost certainly far less than 20% so there is no reason to call the shove in that spot.

If a table is a little quiet I will sometimes pose this question to get some chatter going ..

You're playing the WSOP Main Event ($10K buy-in) .. You will NEVER get to play this tournament again

You're in the BB in the first hand and look down at AA

EVERYONE shoves all-in .. What do you do? Assume at least 3-4 Players have actually looked at their hand, maybe all of them.

1) Try to win a Day 2 chip stack the first hand .. or bust never to return
2) Fold and try to enjoy the experience for more than one hand (and hopefully get a table change!)

This usually creates 3-4 hands of conversation and lead to other topics .. GL

That is an interesting one. Personally I call and GII with a profitable edge, but that really is because in a tournament filled with top pros, that probably gives me my best chance at a Day 2 stack, certainly more so than trying to slowly chip up against all the sharks. The other interesting one I have heard in the same vein is this: You are BB on the first hand of the tournament and you have QQ. UTG shoves and everyone folds to you. You look at UTG trying to get a read and he accidentally exposes his hand; he has AKo. Do you call and take a flop with a small edge and try to double up, risking busting or do you fold because you think you have a better chance of doubling your stack by accumulating chips more slowly and steadily?

call ldo

In today's world most tournaments aren't freezeouts, so I'd lean heavily towards calling off a HU flip. Even in a 1-off it be hard to pass up this opportunity to become a table boss early on.

If you see a clean Flop in this scenario AND muck 14 random cards under Q you're still 'only' 67% to win. To most poker Players that 17% makes it a snap call. So now you have to decide how important that 17% is to you and whether or not you feel you have a great enough edge over the field to warrant a fold.

In the WSOP scenario AA would be doing very well if it was 30% to win against 8-9 'randoms' including 3-5 pocket pairs that could hit a set. GL

You can just open jam for your 500bb and win the blinds or get it in with 80% equity against a fool calling the shove

Never ever fold AA in a cash game. If you are uncomfortable with the money behind to still play for then just go allin and win whats in there and sometimes get called by KK anyways. (And find a smaller game where you are comfortable playing super deep stacked)


Only in the most extreme ICM tourney spots does folding AA pre makes $$.

Ex. In a satellite where 40 win a seat and there are 41 left, if you have the 2nd largest stack you should probably fold AA if the biggest stack jams into you. Reason being is that winning the pot wins you almost nothing, and losing the pot costs you a ton.

I actually open folded KK on a satty bubble once because the bb had me covered and I thought she would call too wide, while my stack was big enough to outlast the several microstacks that are begging for the field to pay the bubble for an extra seat.

If I'm in a situation where folding aces is the correct play I don't look at my cards so I don't know if I have them or not.

Maybe I explained it wrong, but I do understand the responses. A bit more of details, I loss 10 out of 12 times that I shoved all in preflop with pocket Aces, in the last 4 months, that is why I want to fold them now preflop going against 4 or more players. It was at a 1/2nl game with $350 plus of my chips where my Aces were cracked. One time it was just $80 which was great, no problem, but the other times they busted me, and my momentum of playing solid poker. The math says in the long run I will win, but at this point I do not believe it for me. Since then, I slowed down, I had them two times since this post, one time I just called with them and was able to let them go because there was 4 cards same suit for a flush draw, easy fold. The 2nd time I slow played again, and I let them go on an aggressive bet from a tight player, and he showed me 2 pair when I folded.

So, I plan to slow down, but deep down I want to shove all in, but I am getting killed bad. If I would have folded or played slower in the past, I would not have loss all my chips. But I am running bad with the all in preflop with multiple players.

I have not heard everyone saying the only way to play aces is AIPF. In fact deep that is often a poor way to play them. Sure they are the best starting hand, but post flop they are usually just a one pair hand. So yes, you need to learn how to fold aces post flop.

OTOH, if you are properly rolled and can consistently shove aces preflop getting 4callers, you will print money on average. Please point me at that game.

Simple fact, don’t fold aces preflop in a cash game.

Sounds like you need to Google the term “gamblers fallacy”. The fact that you have lost with aces when shoving PF and getting 4 callers over the past few instances is irrelevant to whether it will happen again next time. And like I tried to explain before, that 10 out of 12 losses is not really all that unexpected. You are not favored to win in a spot with aces against four callers. Just as some sample math, I assumed you had an average equity of 40% with your aces. Your chances of losing 10 or more times out of 12 hands is about 8%. That is not likely, but it also is not a horrifically bad run either — such events happen when you play enough hands.

And yes, please tell the forum where the hell you are playing that you can get 4 callers when you shove AA preflop. We might want to arrange a road trip.

Depending on the PF action .. If you are shoving for less than $120 in my area I wouldn't even give it a 2nd thought as to the results. You're going to get called and it's probably going 3-4 ways to the Flop. I've played poker long enough that these types of hands just go into the abyss and you can't allow them to affect your play.

Not sure if mentioned yet or not .. IMO for you to end up in 'so many' of these spots means that you are a fairly easy read at the table and your opponents know what they're getting into when entering these pots. They also may just see your chips as dead money and use them for pot odds to get into a large pot with the other Vs. Not knowing your 'room' situation you may want to try and get onto a table that is less variable, but that may not be possible as well.

While the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, this is not an 'insane' situation. As mentioned above, each hand of poker is it's own entity and previous results have zero factor in the results of the current hand.

Probability will offer expected long range (over an infinite sample) 'results'. I've walked by a roulette table many a time and seen where one color dominates the last 16 spins .. it's not supposed to be that way since it's about 48% in both directions. As explained before, if you are going into 4-way Showdowns with AA you are going to be around 40% or more to win, which is worse than roulette. Once you are all-in, there's no folding .. once they release the ball in roulette there will be a result. At that point in time these results are no different IMO.

While there's really nothing too deep to discuss about an AIPF hand with AA you may want to post some other hands to see how your approach to them compares to other thoughts. Also, how are you running with KK/QQ? Poker Players usually remember the losses way more than the wins .. I'm assuming something is going well during your sessions or you would run out of bankroll, eh? GL