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Slow Playing Aces

Thursday, December 4th, 2008 by Phil

I was playing in Atlantic City this weekend and I got burned by slow playing AA twice.

I was playing in a tournament and we’re down to 20 players. I need to outlast 10 players in order to finish in the money. I’m just about at chip average so I’m not in the red zone just yet. I don’t have to gamble just yet but I’m not that comfortable either. The blinds are 1k-2k. I’m at about 30k in chips. There’s a lot of short stacks out there and I wake up with AA under the gun. I decide to limp. I felt this was a good move at the time because I felt one of the shorties would push… but that didn’t happen. It’s weird, If I were a short stack and had about 3x the BB, I’d think about pushing with any two face cards. But these players were playing so weak and so scared that I should’ve known better. Only the SB calls and the BB checks. The flop is fairly innocent at least from my perspective.

7-4-10 rainbow. I bet out 4k and only the BB calls.

The turn is a Q of spades. I toss out a 8k bet and this time the BB shoves. It was going to cost me about another 10k to call. Now in this situation, I’m pretty sure I’m behind considering the player in the BB is fairly tight and would never put in this type of bet on a bluff.

This is where I screw up. I broke my cardinal rule of slow playing Aces: If you’re going to slow play or limp in with AA, then you must be able to lay that hand down when you’re beat. It’s that simple. The trade off for limping in or slow playing AA is that you might win a huge pot but then you can also lose a huge pot because you’re letting guys with marginal hands in cheap. I didn’t follow my rules and I paid dearly for it. This time I couldn’t lay down my AA even though I had a feeling that I was beat. I call and the BB shows 7/4 for two pair. I’m crippled and I’m out within the next 5 hands.

My reasoning was solid as I felt that if one of the shorties had anything with two face cards, they would push and I could take somebody down. I also reasoned that if somebody decided to raise in late position I could re-pop them and take down a huge pot. In a perfect world this would’ve happened but it didn’t. In reality, I should’ve been able to fold my AA against the BB who could have any two cards and could’ve hit the flop hard. That’s the risk you take for limping in. I wish I was able to fold my AA but I couldn’t and that’s another reason why I’m not even remotely ready to play for big stakes.

After I bust out of the tourney, I turn my attention to playing cash games. I’m sitting at a 1/2 NL table and I wind up with AA again in EP. Now this table was very loose and crazy, so again I decided to limp in, knowing that somebody would raise the pot later on. I was right and somebody did raise the pot to $10. This guy was aggressive and I knew that I could trap this guy if I had the right hand in the right situation. I thought this was it.

Instead of re-popping him, I decided to smooth call and there’s another player who calls also, everybody else who limped folded. So now I’m in a 3 way pot and out of position against two players. That’s alright, I have AA so I’m not worried just yet.

The flop comes out K-7- 4. I bet out $25 into a $38 pot. Both guys called. The turn is a 10. I bet out $60 and get one caller.

The river was an 8. Not a scare card in my opinion. I would have been be more worried if another face card hit because somebody could be holding K-J, K-Q or even K-10 suited. So I think I’m good. I bet out $75, which I think is a solid value bet because if the other guy is holding K-Q or K-J I’d get a call. Instead I got a raise. The villain minimum raised me… the good old minimum raise. This screaming call. I figure he’s got a set but then I think he would’ve re-raised me if he had a set on the flop because there were two diamonds and he would definitely want to protect against a draw. The only hand that I could think he had that he could re-raise me with is K-10 or K-Q. If he’s holding K-Q then I have him beat, but if he limped in with K-10 suited then I’m beat and I have to fold. I discount the K-Q because again I’d have to think that the villain would’ve re-popped me with K-Q on the flop and definitely on the turn. The only hand that I put him that he was willing to re-raise me on the river is K-10. So of course I called and he shows me K-10 and I pay him off. Now that sucks.

Of course the first thing the guy says to me is that I should’ve never slow played my aces because he wouldn’t have called a raise preflop with K-10 and he’s right. I tried to be tricky and it bit me on the ass.

Now I’ve limped in or slow played AA before and it’s worked many times. Other times I’m in there raising. Playing AA or any big pair this way is a viable strategy, but playing AA weakly means that I take the risk of somebody outdrawing me. This means that I should be a good enough player to lay down AA if I think I’m beat, however, both times I failed to do that, and it cost me.

The moral of this story isn’t that I limped in with AA (any decent poker player should mix up their play) but that I didn’t have the discipline to lay down my AA when I was beat.

What am I going to do next time I get AA in early position? I don’t know the answer to that because it really depends on the situation but the one thing that I can put in the bank is that the next time I decide to limp in with AA is that I’ll have the discipline to fold them when I think I’m beat.