Playing Big Aces Pre Flop (Poker)
Big Aces pre flop, are cards that every poker player loves to see. Big aces constitute AK, AQ and AJ and are very strong cards in any Hold'em game, especially before the flop. In Low Limit Hold'em games, players love to play any combination of big cards- KQ, K10, QJ etc and will have real trouble laying down these hands.
In higher limit games players are often more selective about their starting hands and you tend to find less big cards being played, unless they are AK and AQ.
Low limit Hold'em players will play cards like K10 suited nearly all of the time which you should use to your advantage, especially if you have big aces. All too frequently players will make several calls with hands that are a long way behind hoping to catch cards. Big aces are rarely dominated. On occasion you will play AQ and come up against AK but don't let this scare you off the correct play in Low Limit Hold'em, the raise. Even if you are not dominating, you will not be far behind and after the first round of betting you will likely have an idea of where you stand.
The correct play with these hands is to raise it up. Remember you have nothing so as good as the starting hand is you will likely need to improve to win the hand. For this reason you should put in a raise to get those players with marginal hands out of the way. In a standard low-limit game players will likely call you anyway so may as well get the pot in a healthy state.
Assume that your big ace is in front and put a raise in. If there has been a raise before you and you have AKo, Aks or AQs go ahead and put in a re-raise as there is still a good chance you will dominate your opponents.
Of course things may change when you get to the flop. You may not hit anything on the flop and your position could change so be prepared to let your cards go. We will get to this in a later section but for now understand that after the flop an AQ that hits nothing is easily beaten (unless there is a very good draw). Don't get married to your hands.
Don't try and slow play big aces in Low Limit Hold'em games as by raising you will likely get a call or calls regardless, so use the fact that Low limit players call too much and maximize your pot (winning potential). Play Big Aces pre flop aggressively.
The exception to the rule may be if you are playing middle to high stakes and you have a bully at the table who is continually raising up the pot. If this is the case you may want to slow play the hand if you have confidence that your opponent will raise it up. If he does you should put a re-raise in as you will very likely be ahead. Only do this if there are 2-3 players in the pot.
What you don't want to do is let players see a cheap flop and catch cards with their marginal hands. You want to try to get the mediocre hands to fold so there is no chance of getting piped by a poor poker starting hand.
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