http://www.twoplustwostore.com/twopl...1&productID=36

Read the NL section of this book and get comfortable with the strategy, as you should find it easier to play. I post this because this is your first post on the site and you may not have heard of it.

No! You are absolutely never "obliged" to act in any habitual way when betting, calling or raising. Doing so will mark you and make you an easy read.

Yes, you might, but you could also have this happen to you if you had A5 suited, 10sJs, etc. If you're going to fold to the pressure every time you have a monster, than you're a fish, and you should not be a fish. Here are some examples of how to play a monster preflop hand:

AA in early position, first to enter. Raise 2 or 2.5 the BB
Buttton calls, BB calls
flop comes Jd7d7s
you check, button bets 20%, BB folds what do you do?
well, you have a monster over the board, but a very touchy board. But, the button is giving you a good price to call. He might have a J or a 7, not likely to hold pocket 7s with your early raise, more likely pocket Js.
Why call? 1. right price, 2. your monster could catch an Ace on the turn and you could kill Js or any 7.

next hand you have AdKd on the button. middle position makes it 3.5 times the BB, you call, SB and BB fold, your heads up. Flop comes 10d8c7d. Now, here is where you have to know your opponent. What would he/she be holding bringing in a raise in middle position? Ax, 10dJd? Anything that could possibly be helped by this board that could pay you off big time? Middle raiser makes it 70% to go. You call. Why? That's a lot of pressure you say? Not with a flop draw to a nut flush and two overs!! Call. Then if you don't catch anything on the turn you can easily fold.

Last hand, you have KK on the button. Early position raises 3.5x BB, you have two more callers before you. You know the early position raiser is loose and so do the other two callers. What do you do here? Don't be a fish. Reraise another 3x the early position bet, maybe even 4x if you have a deep enough stack. You could take down the pot right there. But at the least you could get heads up with at worst the next best hand. Flop comes Ah5d10c and the one heads up player bets 60% to you. If it's the early loose player, you should probably call, any other player that called the early raiser, you need to seriously consider they might have an Ace, I mean they did call your reraise. You might consider a crying call here, but that would be foolish. If the flop comes something like 10s7c3d, you would push with a raise to the bet. But even in that case, you would have to consider trips for the bettor. Any continued pressure here from anyone other than the loose player would have to consider a fold.

I know it's hard sometimes not to fold to pressure, but you need to take those factors that will give you the information to be able to act. Don't just think because someone bets they have a better hand than you. They could easily be second best, but know you will fold to their pressure.

Good Luck.

A5s is a very good hand post flop. But preflop it really is just another hand, outside of it's flush and small straight possibility. It's after the flop that A5 becomes easy to play. But those situations don't happen as often as you like, so you need to learn to be the one putting pressure instead of getting it. If you don't like getting crushed with a monster preflop, then put enough pressure on the table that they will fold to it. But be very careful after the flop, if you decide to do this. Only continue that pressure if the rest of the table doesn't show much interest in the flop.

This kind of relates to a bit of what I was saying above. Easy to play postflop isn't necessarily good. For instance, 27o is very easy to play postflop. Unless you make two pair or better, if anyone shows the remotest interest in playing, you fold. Knowing this, of course, makes it easy to play preflop too. You fold it. The easiest hands to play are the crap ones, because folding when you have no chance is a no brainer.

play super turbo's

Where do you play? LOL

This is so true and I'm not even levelling here like everybody would assume.

OP, just open shove those hands when you get them. You'll probably only win the blinds, but it's at least guaranteed profit, unlike the other hands you like playing.

This is terrible advice, please do not do this.

I'm still trying to find the coffee, I'll come back in a bit with a better write-up.

does OP coach?

lol donkaments. i saw a dude firing 1/4 of his stack preflop with pocket aces and a dude on the button had J10. he called and the flop came J 10 10. ace man continued to fire and by the turn he was all-in. after the loss he went on a rampage about how it's +ev to shove all-in preflop every time with pokcet aces and that nobody should call his raises, it was pure gold.

...seriously...? you play poker but dont want big pairs?

Oh no! I didn't read the whole thread, but if these hands are giving you problems, then I would hate to see what problems you have with middle SCs and PPs or KJs and AQ type hands. The truth is my friend is that these should be the easiest hands for you to play, not the hardest.

OP - your problem is not that you don't know how to handle premium hands - your problem is that you are playing scared. You are going to lose LOTS of hands when you play poker. There is no way around it. In fact, you will lose way more hands than you will win (not necessarily with the hands you mentioned, but overall). Think about what kind of basketball player Kobe Bryant would be if he played scared to miss a shot (and he misses well over 1/2 the time). Or how a home run hitter in baseball would fare if he went up to the plate fearing a strikeout? When you have a good hand that you think you can get value from, bet confidently, and if you lose, shrug it off and focus on the next hand. This isn't to say that you should become a spewtard who can't let go of an overpair/TPTK when he is clearly beat, but you have to be aggressive if you want to be a winner. There is a Roman saying, "Fortune Favors the Brave" Take that to heart and don't worry about the suckouts.

^^^^^^^^^
good advice above.

qft /thread etc...

Why I LOVE getting AA,KK,QQ,JJ,AKs.

Theses are the most profitable hands in poker.
Take away your money with AA and KK as a poker player and your a losing player 95% of the time.

I bet you slowplay or get into to many multiway pots with them.

Hmm, well that is correct to a degree. It depends on who you are playing with, if they always fold to a shove, then yeah technically it's plus EV I guess but yeah it's not nearly as plus EV as it should be.

OP, I love those hands.

Your problem is that you don't know when to let go of them and when to get value out of them.

You have JJ and 432 comes out, then turn is a 5, if your op is raising you hard, it's time to fold, unless they are super agressive, then you might be in the lead.

If you have AA and the board comes KJ8, 2 spades and you get 2 callers, and the next card is a spade, well the question becomes are one of your A's a spade? If so how much are they betting? What are the pot odds you are getting to call? Did the spade that came out on the turn pair the board because if it did, you have more outs. Then you can use the amount of outs to calculate your odds of winning and then combine that with the pot odds you are getting to call. You should also be taking into consideration what type of player they are, would they bluff reping that they had the flush or would they check if they did not have the flush? Would they check the flush or would they bet when they have it?

I think that is a pretty good example of some of the thought processes you should have when you have something like, AA.

OP i hope you get an endless supply of J2o , 26s and 39o

god op i pray for big pairs when im running bad.. i have no sympathy for you stop freakin whining about getting dealt AA crybaby

edit: wah wah i might lose wah

you are terrible

OP, maybe these hands just aren't living up to what you think they should be. AA is the "best" hand, but it's still only around 50% in a multiway pot. And even when you win, top pair isn't likely to take a really big pot.

To be fair to OP, the value of the big hands drops dramatically on the later streets, particularly in a multiway pot with a bad board. OP may have a much harder time understanding when his overpair/top pair is no good than he has understanding whether or not he has odds to draw to a big hand on the flop. So he is getting the cheap decisions right more often and screwing up the expensive decisions, which is making him want to crawl into his shell.

I say don't fall in love with overpairs when you're obviously beat. An overpair is still only one pair - not really a hand to get excited about in a nine-handed cash game.

Unless you have AA and you have a raise and a re raise in front of you, then I get really excited as I await my turn to shove all in.

AA KK QQ JJ AK are good headsup, if you're at a table with lots of loose players then it is best to preflop hard. They tend to under perform in multiway pots and most of the time you're playing defense on the turn/river against draws.

I'm not advocating it. It's obvious why these hands are the best starting hands in holdem, and if OP hates them maybe trying my strategy will put things into perspective.
Besides it's always better to be raising too much than too little, like a lot of people do.