Are You Tired of Not Paying Attention at the Poker Table?
You are tired of not being paid attention at the poker table. You look at your hands and see the same old bare bluff you have seen many times before. These hands do not even connect with the flop. You fold pre-flop.
Sequences like this are part of the fail of online afapoker. The combination of two poor decisions combined with the fact you did not pay attention will leave you folding with an ace just as sure as fate will let the same fate claim your pocket pair of queens.
Does that mean You are Aces are weak?
The answer is No, definitely not. What is being compared to a pair of aces is that the ace is a dangerous hand to play in any position. However, playing your aces in early position is not the same as playing them from late position.
The later you play your aces the more advantage you have relative to other starting hands. You will flop more hands that can connect to the flop and win. Playing your aces from early position is just like playing them from late position. You want to make sure that the people betting into you take the most amount of time. Try to take a little longer than other players and flop your aces.
Speaking of flops, the more you learn the better. If the play is going to raise pre-flop then do not get all excited and get all your money in the pot pre-flop. You want to raise the pot only with good hands. If you have to call just because you have a good hand, hope they have not improved their hand (unless your hand is horible).
Pocket Pairs
For the most part, you are going to want to stay away from pocket pairs in early position. You are not looking to make a c-bet so you can get a free card, although if you have Ace 9 etc. then you can force a smaller raise from your opponents if you have say 5 or less scatters.
I know this may still seem a little confusing so let’s use an example to clarify this.
You have pocket 8’s in middle position. You raise in early position and get a call from the button. The flop is as follows 8, 9, Queen, Q. Now you decide to check to get a free card, and.. forth the cards falls. You have 5 spades, and the button raises you by 2X the big blind. This is a fairly aggressive play, but not exactly designed to make you an aggressive player.
So, if you feel that you have the best hand, why not call the raise? The c-bet here is only around 2X the big blind, and if you make a C-bet in late position you cannot c-bet on the turn without a fear of being reconnected. (Is it worth it to call? I will get to that later. I want to raise you all in here to get your chips. Are you in the right spot with the right cards? If not, fold, you haven’t really invested much into the pot anyway. If you did it right, you may even get a call from the button, if it turns out you did not have the best hand.)
Now, the turn comes, Ace comes, Ivey gets Queen of Hearts. Ivey gets pocket 8’s. Getting Queen of Hearts and less appreciated, the button raises all-in and Ivey calls. The blinds fold.
Their cards do not connect, not Ace and Queen, so Ivey is not getting a good hand. If I were him, I would have thought that I was the favorite and call with some sort of speculative hand. It is really a good hand. You can’t get hurt by playing it to aggressively.
The button is getting desperate. He has made a pair of tens in the last hand, and if he makes a couple more big bets, he can steal the blinds or try and make Ivey fold. However, holding firm, and not going broke, he calls.
It is a good play. The odds are not in his favor, but he acknowledged that he probably has the best hand, so he shouldn’t fold, he should call, that is a correct assessment of the odds. If I were him, I would run a cut-off bet on the flop, making it about $1.50. A pot sized bet here is significant because it may have served the purpose of driving out some of the drawing hands that may have later turned into good hands.
One of the things that makes these types of plays so profitable, and the main reason that most people lose so much money when they make them, is because of what I mentioned earlier as the ‘come out’ rule.