Sometimes known as bullets, rockets, or American Airlines, pocket aces is the most powerful starting hand in No-Limit Holdem and also one of the easiest hands to play, unless you are a very bad poker player. Statistically you will only get this hand one out of every 220 hands.
Pre-flop play
In most cases, you should be raising pre-flop with your pocket aces from any position. The main goal of the pre-flop raise is to narrow the field down to only one or two opponents when you hit the flop and at the same time put more money into the pot. There are also some rare occasions when it is a good time to slowplay pocket aces. Then, and only then, you should just call a pre-flop raise with this hand.
Early position
If there was no raise before you, you should make a strong opening raise of about 4 BB to 5 BB when you hold aces. The amount of the raise also depends on how loose or tight the game is. If you are involved in a very loose game, you may even have to raise to 6 BB or more. If the pot has already been raised, you should re-raise by the amount that is in the pot. For example, if there is an opening raise of 4 BB and tow callers, including the blinds, there is a total of 15 big blinds in the pot. You should then make it 15 big blinds to play.
Middle position
Again, if there was no raise in front of you, you should raise to about 4 BB to discourage weak holdings from calling your pocket aces. If the pot has been raised, you should definitely re-raise by the amount that is in the pot.
Late position
In late position, if the pot is unraised, with only a few more players behind you and the blinds left, you can reduce the size of your opening raise to 3 BB. Again, if the pot is raised, you need to limit the field with a pot sized re-raise. The ideal situation, with AA, is going to the flop against a single opponent.
Playing the flop
When you hold a pair of aces in hand, you enter the flop very strong. However, as with all pocket pairs, the chance of improving your hand on the flop is slim. The odds of making a set is only 7.5 to 1 but you rarely need to improve your hand to win the pot. A very common flop and a very good one when you are holding pocket aces is a flop of undercards. With the strongest overpair, you are likely to be holding the best hand. In this case, you should bet strong here, usually a pot-sized bet, in order to make drawing hands pay to gamble.
Flopping a set
Flopping a set of aces is ideal when your opponent has flopped a lower set or two pair. When this happens, you will almost surely get paid off. But getting paid off this way happens on rare occasions.
Usually, if you get called on the flop, you will be up against someone holding top pair or drawing to a straight or a flush. Therefore, it doesn't really matter whether you have a set or just a top pair once he hit his draw. The consolation with a set of aces is that even if your opponent manages to make his straight or flush, on the flop or turn, you still have a shot at beating him with a full house by the river.
Playing on the fourth and fifth street
As you have only 2 outs when playing AA, most of the time, you might strongly consider folding when there is a re-raise on the turn or river. Your opponent will re-raise you when he hit his draw or he has been slow-playing his set or two pair, or, in some cases, if he is bluffing. Even if you hit the third ace here, you must be careful that the ace did not make your opponent's straight or flush. Nevertheless, it is usually a wiser play to lose a small pot to the occasional bluff than to lose many big pots where your big hand has been beaten.
Going all-in pre-flop
You should always take advantage of the chance to push your entire stack towards the center when holding AA pre-flop. When you hold those rockets, the best thing that could happen to you is to have someone pushing you all-in since you will win about 80% of the time against a single opponent, unless he or she is also holding pocket aces.
CATEGORY: Strategy