Joined: Feb '14
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 243
Posted by Phisix: Fold pocket aces every time as you will always lose with them.
Come on Phisix... you KNOW that statement is not true.... lol. Most of the time you win with them... My argument is that if you shove with them then you can't be upset if you go out as it down to the luck of the draw after that.. and you KNOW that if you put yourself all in then you are at risk of going out whatever you have preflop.
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
i like pocket aces. especially when people in micro zoom play them face up :o Many people also play AK that way too, on A/K high flop.
Countless times they will either shove on pretty much ANY flop, or make x2-x3 potsized bets (might as well shove mind u), without really paying too much attention to board texture really.
2 aces. I love 2 aces. It is amazing pocket pair. and if u dont connect with board at all, its still the best possible pair there is. So you dominate... all other pairs. While that is pretty dam awesome, you still lose to everything else. And no its not the ultimate nuts, no pair is.
so if ur not allin preflop with aces (which you should defo not slowplay preflop, just dont) and theres heavy action going on (3/4 bets, shoves post flop etc) theres a chance your aces might actually lose. As sad as it might sound, aces do lose from time to time
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Posted by Drawacard:
Posted by Phisix: Fold pocket aces every time as you will always lose with them.
Come on Phisix... you KNOW that statement is not true.... lol. Most of the time you win with them... My argument is that if you shove with them then you can't be upset if you go out as it down to the luck of the draw after that.. and you KNOW that if you put yourself all in then you are at risk of going out whatever you have preflop.
Not in my case I have a higher ratio of losing with them than winning. Especially to lower pairs when I have a 70% plus odds of winning, but hey it's standard to lose to two out's it's not like it is rare or anything. Hell, even playing with them normally people always hit some weird stuff against them while I valuetown myself, because it's obvious they call these raises with 103o and hit two pair innit.
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
Posted by Drawacard:
Posted by ddblt1970: If you are afraid of playing JJ+, you are doing something wrong.
If you could see your statistics you would see, that those hands made you the most chips/money.
Just to emphasize then... of course they make you more money.... but they also get you knocked out more too.
poker is all about making money in the long run. and that doesnt mean you cant get kicked out of 10 tourneys in a row, early, while still making correct plays. It happens. But in the long run, guy calling your JJ shove with his 84o, will lose more money, and will lose more often too. Yes, he might kick you out of that tourney, but thats not what poker is about
as long as you make correct plays (aka playing JJ+ for starters) you will make money. The trick is to make those correct plays often enough, but even if most of us know what ranges to play (in theory), many times we dont stick to those ranges and we all make rather stupid plays (be it because of tilt, losing patience after hours of play, having a phone fight with ur gf and whatnot).
tldr: the trick is to make as few bad plays as possible, while waiting for others to make mistakes. Not playing JJ is a bad play, at pretty much any stage of tourney or cash game (other than some ticket satelites and stuff like that ofc).
Joined: Feb '14
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 243
OK apple - what did you make of my QQ call I mentioned earlier? I don't think I should have called... I'm not worried about some idiot shoving with 8-4o lol... I'm thiking later in the tourny when you are going well and someone who has you covered and has been playing tight shoves before you.... do you call then?
That example with Vicky Coren was pretty good to watch... I'll try to did out a clip sometime.
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
Posted by Drawacard: OK apple - what did you make of my QQ call I mentioned earlier? I don't think I should have called... I'm not worried about some idiot shoving with 8-4o lol... I'm thiking later in the tourny when you are going well and someone who has you covered and has been playing tight shoves before you.... do you call then?
That example with Vicky Coren was pretty good to watch... I'll try to did out a clip sometime.
no, i probably would tighten my range vs nit that late, but thats exactly what stats are for (or if ur not using hud you just pay attention to how others play, it works just like stats, usually even better because stats dont tell the whole story).
I generally dont tend to call nits shoves that easily, especially if he has me covered, unless im shortstacked ofcourse. In fact i dont like preflop shoves at all (of course it has its place) but in general i try to avoid pf shoves as much as possible (but if someone tries to abuse u and shoves like 2-3 times on ur raise, id call with my raising range).
so it depends on many things really, not all JJ/QQ can be played the same way. If theres a guy that has like 5% vpip ill play just top of my range vs him but no i dont think i have ever folded QQ pf
yes, he might as well have pocket aces, purely statistically speaking (and afterall, thats what poker is about ) people wont actually have pocket aces when you get QQ :=) If you think about it, there are only 2 hands that beat your QQ preflop AA and KK, while AKs/o is pretty much a coin flip with u being slight fav.
Still, with all that said, if you noticed that particular guy only plays, lets say AJs+ and is super tight, and also has more chips than you, it really is all up to you to make that decision :=P Some people even include guts feeling into their calculations, so sometimes they will call, other times they wont.
But if you got a good info on that guy and u think he wouldnt really shove anything other than AA/KK well yes fold would be correct play, only if you were 100% sure its one of those 2 hands. Its all about ranges really. Now if you include AKs and AKo, plus AQs AJs(questionable, but most nits would shove that too), you can pretty much see how are you doing vs top of his range.
You are only beat by 2 of his combos, coin flipping vs AKs/o 2, huge fav vs AQs(u got a blocker) and fav vs AJs too. But without more info its pretty much up to you, so all in all while folding QQ vs that guy might be a good play, not many nits, no matter how nitty they are, will shove just AA/KK because thats exploitative, but then again so is folding QQ.
not even sure this helped at all, as its late and im really sleepy, mostly rambling about something that could have been said in like 3 sentences (had 3 hours of sleep yesterday ) but unless hes a fishy nit, he will not shove AA/KK only, and in that case what you try to do is to assign him a range you think he would shove with, and see how are you doing vs that range and what are ur odds.
one last thing, Yes, sometimes they will have AA, but if you really run into pocket aces, its just a cooler, forget about it and move on. The thing with tourney play is , you wont get many better hands than QQ so once you get it, you gotta make some money with it. Sure, normally i dont want all my money in preflop either, but if someone shoves, im gonna call with QQ. Because if you dont do it, soon enough youll be forced to make money with much much weaker hands, and overplay low par weak kicker and stuff like that.
In the long run folding better hands, while overplaying weaker ones, - wont make you that much money
ok im definitely off to bed, had no idea this post will end up being this... huge
really. 
