Aces in the big blind

[stoffmakers]

i was recently playing in a tourney and woke up with aces in the bb. it was folded around to the sb who min raised me and i decided to flat call and trap. flop was J86, he made a large bet, i pushed and he had J8 and held so how do you guys play aces in the bb in a tourney, do you try and trap? and how about in a cash game?

[dnmrtni]

I never slow play aces because when I do ,it always comes back to bite me in the @ss.

[Jarlsberg]

I always bet them. Much better to win a small pot than lose a big one.

[Vito_Nuccio]

Discarding reads and chip stacks, once the SB raised I would have reraised with AA in BB. If SB limps, I would raise most of the time with AA in BB.

A double raise may not be enough against a raiser in SB that likes to defend blinds. A bigger re-raise would be in order, you can take it down (SB raise included) right there if they fold and not have to worry about suckouts.

Once the flop came, the SB was going nowhere with 2 pair, get them out when you can. In this instance a pre-flop raise was justified since the pot was already sweetened by the SB raise.

Slow playing AA can and will get you into trouble. If someone is going to suckout on you, make them pay for it, do not let them have free or cheap draws, even if against only one player. Besides, you need to build the pot with bets along the way or you are setting yourself up to win a small one with AA. There is always the occasion for a slow play, but you should not make a habit out of it, pull it out of the tool box at the proper time.

There is some merit to the old saying that AA will win small pots and lose big ones. More often then not the later is true when slow playing the AA against draws.

Raising with AA should be a fearless and almost automatic response. Get the draws out of the way and build yourself a pot worth raking. If everyone folds, you win the blinds and have no worries of someone cracking your AA.

Later,

[stoffmakers]

i would just like to point out that im my hand, i think blinds were 100-200 and i had a stack of about 3k with the sb 2500. i saw him play some really weak hands heavy to the end before so i was hoping he would hit top pair and i could stack him. this was also a KO tourney, so if i raise too much pre and he folds, cant get the KO.

[liladypokerpro]

Trapping is dangerous with aces, since so many people fall in love with suited cards, or connectors and will chase them down to hit whatever it is they're after. In the BB, I like to raise/re-raise at least 3xBB or double the amount of the original raiser's raise. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work, as last night I ran into someone who held on to JJ until he was all in vs my AA and of course, in true typical form, his 3rd Jack hit on the river.

I guess it depends on the person you are up against and whether or not you can shake them off their hand. Some people are just determined not to fold, at the off chance that you might just be bluffing them.

I have found a lot of people don't consider other players hands when making their decisions...they're not experienced enough to think that way...they just look at their own hand, see that it beats the board, and call or raise with no consideration for the possibility that they could be beat by a bigger hand.

[gorden71]

I almost religiously bet 3x BB with aces. Most of the time I only win a small pot, but occasionally SB will have a PP but not often. I dont slow play them just to avoid being sucked out on.