Gulf Coast Poker Forums

I've never "purposely" folded pocket aces preflop. I say "purposely" because one time I was playing multiple tournaments online and on one table I had aces. I tried to raise but on another table it was my turn, so it popped up and blocked me. By the time I got back to the aces I didn't have enough time to click anything before they were automatically folded. Yeah... I yelled a bit.

I haven't, but I can imagine a situation in which I would. Say I'm playing in a satellite or a sit & go that pays the first three places and there are four players left. I've got the second highest stack. Before I act, the short stack shoves and is immediately called by the third stack. I look down to see aces. Calling would commit most of my stack and if I lose, I'd be crippled for the rest of the tournament and might miss the money. I'd toss them without a second thought in that case.

LOL on hitting the wrong button. I did that once, too, but it was worse because I accidently called a guy's preflop shove with 95o. The poker gods were with me because I won the hand. I turned the chat box off because I didn't want to read a (deserved) cussing out from the guy I sucked out on.

H.O.H Vol 2 pg 421? You're absolutely right, but I still don't know if I could fold them. That instance is so rare that I hope I'm never faced with it.

This did make me think of a funny story of when I was a new player. I played in the Absolute Poker college tuition freeroll where the top 500 people went to the final. The way people played this thing I decided to fold EVERY hand, figuring I could easily qualify.

I was right. It got down to 503 or so and I had folded all my hands along the way. I'm sure I folded some big hands (I don't remember getting aces). Then I'm dealt AK of hearts. Part of me said "fold idiot", while the other part of me said "it's like a top 5 hand!" I decided to raise it and got one caller - the big blind. The flop is like AK4 and it's checked to me. I'm like "wow top two pair I have to be good" so I push. He calls with Q10 for a gutshot and spikes the jack on the river.

The moral of the story? Online poker is rigged.

Ew.. I don't blame you for turning it off!

Charlene and I both play on laptops so it's easy to make mistakes like that. She got down to three in a SNG and accidentally min-re-raised someone from the button with something like 95o. She was like "OMG OMG!" When he checked to her I was like "QUICK C-BET IT!" She took it down lol.

Dang, I knew that example was too smart for it to have been original to me. I haven't read HOH in over a year, so it must have rested in the back of my head.

Have you checked out his new cash game books? I picked up Volume I, but haven't really been able to tear into it, yet.

It stuck with me too! Actually, I think Sklansky probably brought it up before Harrington. I remember reading discussions about folding aces back in the day.



Not yet. I have a ton of books on poker, business, marketing, and self-improvement that I need to read through before I buy any more. I'd love for you to post a review of Harrington's cash game book for the rest of us. He's a good author and smart guy, but I've never really known him to be a big cash game player.

Welcome to my world. I can't go to a bookstore or Amazon and leave with nothing. I bought HOC, even though I was still on working through Miller's Getting Started in Hold 'Em and Sklansky's Hold 'Em again and have Moshman's S&G book lined up next. That's apart from a bunch of normal books I'd like to have the time to read. When I finally make it to HOC, I'll be sure and post my thoughts on it. From my skimming and jumping around I haven't seen anything earth shatteringly new in the first volume like I did the first time I read HOH, but that's obviously not fair to it, since I haven't sat down to read it seriously or to apply anything in it to real games.

For what it's worth, I can't recommend Miller's Getting Started in Hold 'Em highly enough. I wish that had been my first poker book. I think my game would be further along now if I'd used that as a base to develop my game instead of Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em, since that advocates a weak tight style that leaves a lot of money on the table, I think.

only book i read was one page and it said

"flop what you got, and throw your chips in the pot."

so thats what i do and its working out well for me.

There's only one situation I can think of where you might want to fold AA preflop and that's if you're going to be forced to go all-in against multiple opponents, where your odds go down, on the bubble in a sit-n-go. Because there it's not really about winning, but it's about getting in the money. So to I try to stay out of all-in situations with anything less than the nuts in games with that type of structure... but even then, AA...

David
http://www.pokerpenguin.net

I'm not a sit n go guy at all - I'm purely cash game players but I'm pretty sure you should never fold AA in a regular SNG. If you play SNGs to make the money and nothing more, your long term winrate will suffer horribly. Your winrate is primarily determined by how many 1st place finishes you get...yes anything in the money is good, but 2nd and 3rd don't pay enough. If you were talking about satellite SNGs, I apologize and totally agree with you there. Satellites are all about making it to the money.