What a glorious feeling it is to squeeze that first look at your hole cards and see American Airlines! Hallelujah!!!! The skies just opened up and the sun is shining brightly! You are king of the universe, Superman and Batman rolled into one. But wait, is it possible to play aces badly? So badly, that you manage to lose the hand and perhaps your seat in the tournament? Well, sadly, yes. Truth be told it is much easier to play small pairs (in my humble opinion) than those pocket rockets. Yes, oftentimes they "play themselves", you raise, pocket kings re-raises, and you shove. Easy peasy. I had a recent conversation with a poker friend about this and how he had lost by trapping. Then just a few days later I watched him get busted again with the same trap. But let's take a closer look at the positional and action situations.
1. Under the gun
To me, this is probably the easiest place to play aces. You of course would seldom limp in to trap, but sometimes that is exactly what you want to do. If there is a hyper-aggressive button, you may draw other limpers in to see Mr. Maniac raising. You can then re-raise or better, shove, to watch the "monkeys in the middle" fold to the squeeze and hopefully the loose button folds as well or calls and you can hope he does not get lucky. This is situational, and you need to know the players' tendencies. If you limp and everyone else does too your rockets just hit a big problem with you out of position.
I prefer to raise, even a min-raise will do, but better is a standard 2.5x or 3x blind raise for consistency's sake and to provide cover for yourself when you do it with a smaller pair. If the min-raise is perceived as weak by the later players it may encourage them to re-raise to isolate you. Great! I busted out of a tournament at The Venetian on the bubble with this exact scenario. My pocket kings were definitely no good.
2. Middle position with a limper or 2.
This to me is clearly a raise situation, with a 3x plus 1x for each limper. You want to elicit folds here, or get the small pair, weak ace, or suited connectors to call out of position in a big pot. I see no scenario where you would ever limp.
3. Late position, no limpers
From any late position, hijack, cutoff or button I would standard raise. This looks like a steal, and will often get played back at from stronger hands. Oops, sorry AK.
4. Late position multiple limpers
This is pretty much the same as middle position, just a bigger raise due to the number of limpers.
5. Small Blind, no limpers
Man, do I ever hate aces here. If you raise, whoopdedoo, you just got your blind back plus the BB. If you limp to trap you let 7/2 flop trips and bust your weak ass. What the heck to do? I think my preference would be to overbet the pot. It looks extremely weak and may encourage the big blind to play back at you hard. How much to overbet? Depends on your stack vs. the BB. If you each had 10 BB's or less, I think a shove would be in order. More blinds, maybe 4 to 5 BB's. Either way, you look a little weak.
6. Small Blind, limpers
O.K., here is where you definitely want to bet. As the out of position player there is no way you want to see a flop. The more limpers, the bigger the bet. Shoving would not be out of the question as you might get a call from that small pair or suited ace.
7. Big Blind, no limpers except small blind
Again, I am thinking not to trap here. A big raise will nearly always get a fold, but a min-raise? I kind of like the idea of getting more money in the pot with the best hand and best position.
8. Big Blind, limpers
I also hate this position. A big raise is in order except for one scenario which I will describe below.
The "Stop and Go" Play
I remember two distinct hands where I had aces in the big blind. Both times I had a smallish stack, not big enough to elicit folds with a lot of limpers. Both times I shoved pre-flop and lost. Both times, If I had played a stop and go, I would probably have won the hand (and a lot of chips). So, the basic strategy is this: You check your option, and shove any flop. In the two tournaments I mentioned, the first had two jacks on the flop (nobody had one), but it was checked to the river and a player rivered a flush. The second one, same story, a pair on the flop which nobody had and a rivered 2 outer set of 6's. I am pretty sure that I would have won both hands with the stop & go. This is a highly situational scenario, but I have run into it a few times. It can also work well with a smallish stack if you catch any part of the flop or choose to bluff off your chips.
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