SCENARIO 7
All the poker players have $1,000 in chips. Your hand is the A ? A ?. You brought it in for $100, four times the size of the big blind, from first position. One player called the raise. The pot now contains the two blinds ($10 plus $25), your $100, and your opponent's $100 for a total of $235.
How do you play your pocket aces?
A. Bet all in because you are sure to have the best hand and don't want to give any free cards.
B. Check, hoping your opponent will bet. If he doesn't have the 4 ? in his hand, you have the play no limit holdem hand.
C. Check all the way to the river because he might have the 4 ? and you don't want to get busted.
Analysis
You should check (B). Unless your opponent is lucky enough to have the case four in his hand (the last four), you have the nuts. You want to give him a chance to make a pair, which would give him a lower full house than yours, or to make a poker bluffing hand at the pot. It is very unlikely that he has a four in his hand since he called $100 to see the flop.
SCENARIO 8
All the players have $1,000 in chips. Your hand is:
You brought it in for $100, four times the size of the bigs blinds, from first position. One player called the raise. The pot no limit holdem poker now contains the two blinds ($10 plus $25), your $100, and your opponent's $100 for a total of $235.
How do you play your pocket aces?
A. Check to give your opponent a chance to bet, because you have the top overpair and the nut flush holdem poker draw.
B. Bet $300 because he might make a straight poker game.
C. Bet all your chips Because you have an overpair and surely the best hand.
Analysis
Option A is the preferred play. This is a very powerful flop for your aces, especially since you have the nut flush draw to go with your big overpair. Be prepared to go all in with this hand if Necessary understanding.
Playing Big Pairs: Kings
How to Play Kings Before the Flop
Pocket kings is the "other" real pair only one hand is a favorite over two kings before the flop. We will usually play a pair of kings about poker the same way that we play pocket aces. We normally want to raise three to four times the big blind when we are the first player to enter the pot. We also want to get all of our chips in before the flop if possible.
If someone reraises your initial raise, it is almost always correct to reraise or move all-in, especially when you're still new to the rare occasion when you run into aces. It's ugly, but there's nothing you can do about it when that happens-it's just part of the luck of the game.
Kings are very hard to fold before the flop-it takes an experienced player to be able to make this laydown. This is where practice at reading your opponents pays off. For instance, suppose a very solid player (whom you know never raises without a hand) raises three to four times the size of the big blind. Another player reraises him four times his initial raise. The solid player then moves in.
Sometimes, if you are concentrating and into the game, you "know" without a doubt that the solid player has A-A.
When you get to the point that you are 90 percent sure that you are correct, you will be able to make the laydown glossary game.
In a famous hand at the World Series of Poker in 1992, Hamid Dastmalchi folded pocket kings when Mike Alsaadi reraised him before the flop. Dastmalchi showed the kings as he threw them in the muck and, in a gentlemanly gesture, alsaadi showed the pocket aces he had raised with. Dastmalchi went on to win the World Championship of Poker for $1,000,000 and Alsaadi finished fourth for a winning poker $101,0000.