This thought process comes after being up for 24 hours and ending it by playing an 8 hour session where i kinda got my *** handed to me. The question i have is this:

Besides a time where you have a super aggro lag type player is there any reason to slowplay AA? I made the mistake of telling myself this morning things like. " Oh you haven't slowplayed a big pair in a loooooong time" and in my incredibly minute sample size i got out flopped everytime. Now i assume the consensus will be never slow play big pairs especially at the micros. But i have to ask does anyone slow play AA or KK? and has it been against a variety of opponent.

I know i made mistakes here and some was due to sleepyness more than anything else. Where does slowplaying a pair even become relevant?

God this might sound like a whine again but situations i came across really made me think about it. So basically after all of this boring diatribe my basic question is....

What situations will you slowplay a big pair(AA more than any other hand)?


and now off to bed

I verly rarely slowplay a pair of aces preflop. I might do it if there are LAGs left to act behind me.

In a tournament I'd do it if I think there are players with short/mediumish stacks who'll push.

Post flop, I play them strong. Except for pot control, ie if I bet strongly, I'll get called with hands that beat me, and fold hands that I beat.

One way not to play a big pair is to limp with them and then stack off indiscriminately in a deep game unimproved. After the flop, you no longer have a big hand.

If I limp with aces, it's because I suspect someone will raise from a position (e.g., immediately after me) that allows me to put in the second raise profitably. This isn't part of my normal strategy, but it's something I will employ to exploit an overly aggressive player.

If a player raises in front of us, Ciaffone suggests it's OK to flat call if we have position and we're heads up. Sometimes the effect is to kill our action rather than enhance it, though, if the flop contains overcards to our opponent's second best pair (e.g., queens, which could've given you a lot of action preflop). I think it has the most value for creating deception. That is, our opponents can't reason, "He can't have AA because he didn't reraise preflop."

Largay advices in his book not put in the first raise with AA for value. I think that's goofy, but there are people with that idea, too.

Doyle also advises this when dealt AA, or KK, in ep.

I don't necessarily agree with this, but I don't play anywhere near the same limits as him or have played anywhere near as long as he has.

Doyle's section cracks me up. The introduction goes on and on about how crazy aggressive he is, but in the actual text he's very conservative with one pair hands.

I like putting in smallish raises from EP. The middle position players (who really are ahead of my range) commit a lot of money if they put in the second raise before they fear AA or KK. Limp/re-raise lets them off the hook in a lot of cases, especially if we're not doing it with other hands for deception.

it all depends on weather or not you are able to lay down aces or kings ui when all evidence points to you being beat. if you think your postflop skill is sufficient to determine this, sure do it occasionally if the situation appears right. 99% of the time, play them hard pf please

[quote name='David_Nicoson' date='Friday, May 4th, 2007, 6:12 AM' post='1873458']
Doyle's section cracks me up. The introduction goes on and on about how crazy aggressive he is, but in the actual text he's very conservative with one pair hands.

doyle wants to put YOU to a decision for all your chips. he wants you to have the big pair. when you have aa or kk your whole stack is in jeopardy no matter how "well" you play postflop.

lol, awesome.

I will limp AA or KK in EP (sometimes even JJ or QQ) if I feel there is a decent chance the pot will be raised behind me. That way I can trap some dead money and then repop. The downside to this is that you really give away your hand as a big pair and lose deception. You really have to have the ability to fold to sets and let go of the big pairs, especially versus smart villains who will recognize the big pair in your hand and put you to the test.

qft