Aces Cracked

Just played CardsChat $100 freeroll on PokerStars.

Second hand in, I’m in MP, I get dealt pocket aces.
There’s a 3bb raise after some folds so I raise 5bb then two others go all in, everyone else folds; including the first better and the action comes back to me.

I go all in.

Board:
*** FLOP *** [3s 4h Qd]*** TURN *** [3s 4h Qd] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [3s 4h Qd Td] Q♣



Showdown:
I show: [As Ad] (two pair, Aces and Queens)


Seat 3: shows [Qs Js] (three of a kind, Queens)


Seat 9: shows [Jh 9s] (a pair of Queens)



I was gutted but not surprised.

For the record, I would have never gone all in if I was holding those guys cards and had 2 raises in front of me.

Would anyone else fold pocket rockets preflop to an “all in”?

Only in a satellite tourney would I fold.

When you are AA in heads up you are 85.something % to win, when you are playing two or more going all in preflop (then called), you are at about a 50% chance to win. You coin flipped with AA going all in preflop, and you lost the coin flip.

I would of dropped the "aces all in preflop" and played with skill on later streets in a tourney...Aces are as amazing as you make them out to be in a tournament, if they bust you out in a tourney, they are nothing but something to look at and reflect on.

caracaski220

You definetly should have raised much more. dont risk the junk coming in and hitting,
I just los with pocket aces inthe GG pokerr cc 100. All in 3 callers,because ii had under 3k left. Lost to a single club on a runner runner for 4 clubs board.
They look so good when you get them. hahaha

all in all the time in this situation .. is the best hand preflop the rest is history is bad luck or variance however u want to see it and more on a freeroll is precious situation

I would agree in a cash game it would be worth the “what if” if had a solid bankroll, but if in a tourney, once your out, you are out. In a cash game, you just buy more chips and say well..that was the breaks.

Thanks everyone.Ah well, at least I got a throwable poo 💩 as consolation prize! 😂😂

JSeer said:

Just played CardsChat $100 freeroll on PokerStars.

Second hand in, I’m in MP, I get dealt pocket aces.
There’s a 3bb raise after some folds so I raise 5bb then two others go all in, everyone else folds; including the first better and the action comes back to me.

I go all in.

Click to expand...

well played.

seriously, that's all you need. nothing else matters. the results don't matter. who cares if your aces got cracked, you made the right play. ask yourself, would you be making this post if your aces had won? probably not. so stop paying so much attention to what the results are and focus on making +ev decisions.

Pokerstudy said:

When you are AA in heads up you are 85.something % to win, when you are playing two or more going all in preflop (then called), you are at about a 50% chance to win. You coin flipped with AA going all in preflop, and you lost the coin flip.

I would of dropped the "aces all in preflop" and played with skill on later streets in a tourney...Aces are as amazing as you make them out to be in a tournament, if they bust you out in a tourney, they are nothing but something to look at and reflect on.

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no, aces do not drop to 50% equity against 2 players, or even 3 players. iirc, against 2 opponents, aces still have ~73% equity to win and i think it's 67% equity against 3 opponents.

but that doesn't matter because, unless this is a satellite bubble, you should never, ever, ever, ever be folding aces preflop. please don't me you're good enough to fold aces preflop to play with 'skill' later in the tournament. that is so silly. name one poker professional that has ever said "you should fold aces agaisnt multiple players because you have a better chance of losing." you can't because they would never say that. so, why do you think you can fold here and give up a huge equity edge over your opponents? because of your skill level? there are a ton of very skilled professional players that never fold here. are you better than them?

don't fold aces here. seriously.

By a person

There is a professional saying "How does he win in AA?", too.

caracaski220 said:

You definetly should have raised much more. dont risk the junk coming in and hitting,

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are you saying op should have raised more so the bad hands fold?

because that's just incorrect. you have aces. you don't want your opponents to fold their junk hands, you want to extract as much value as you can. could op have raised more to extract more value? maybe, but i dont know the stack sizes. but op should never be raising here to try and get villains to fold their bad hands.

poker isn't a game of winning hands v hands, it's a game of extracting value from your big hands against weaker hands. how do you win mtts, how do you make money off of weaker opponents if you're afraid to maximize your value with your big hands, especially aces?

Pokerstudy said:

I would agree in a cash game it would be worth the “what if” if had a solid bankroll, but if in a tourney, once your out, you are out. In a cash game, you just buy more chips and say well..that was the breaks.

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busting out an mtt doesn't matter if you go out with aces.

you're focusing your attention on the wrong things. you're focusing on things that don't even matter in the long term. this is a situations where you're going to just have to bust out of an mttt with aces ~27-30% of the time. that's just how it goes. you should never be folding here because you fear busting out with an mtt with aces.

if that's how you feel, mtts might not be the game for you because, if you're folding here, you're losing way more value (money) in the long term than if you actually call here and lose 30% of the time. just because you're not losing with aces by folding here doen't mean you aren't losing anything. you're losing a lot more than you realize.

No matter how many players there are or how low your equity due to number of players entering the pot, you are always the favorite to win with Aces preflop. You played it just fine.

unfortunately A/A does lose a lot even thow its the best starting hand it loses to to pairs far to often imo

I think it’s pretty clear that if you play a tournament you need to be a post flop player, not a all or nothing preflop player, even with the best starting hand AA. As you well see, they got cracked...you be the judge of what actually works in a tournament.

I wouldn’t of folded here, I would of re-raised and not shoved. If I was shoved on I wouldn’t of called. I have no issues dropping aces against an all in shove in a tournament, and I don’t shove with them either.

Pokerstudy said:

I think it’s pretty clear that if you play a tournament you need to be a post flop player, not a all or nothing preflop player, even with the best starting hand AA. As you well see, they got cracked...you be the judge of what actually works in a tournament.

I wouldn’t of folded here, I would of re-raised and not shoved. If I was shoved on I wouldn’t of called. I have no issues dropping aces against an all in shove in a tournament, and I don’t shove with them either.

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this is just so bad.

i'm not trying to be mean, but you need to do a lot more poker studying if you're doing things like folding aces preflop or, even worse, raising and then folding to a 4bet shove with aces because they might get cracked preflop.

what really works in an mtt? making +ev decisions. that's it. results don't matter. your aces getting cracked when you get it in preflop and you bust out of an mtt doesn't matter. what matters is the fact that folding aces here is a -ev decisions and you're giving ups so much value when you do. you are not doing as well as you think you are in mtts or as well as you potentially could if you're folding aces in this spot.

ohshootmybad said:

this is just so bad.

i'm not trying to be mean, but you need to do a lot more poker studying if you're doing things like folding aces preflop or, even worse, raising and then folding to a 4bet shove with aces because they might get cracked preflop.

what really works in an mtt? making +ev decisions. that's it. results don't matter. your aces getting cracked when you get it in preflop and you bust out of an mtt doesn't matter. what matters is the fact that folding aces here is a -ev decisions and you're giving ups so much value when you do. you are not doing as well as you think you are in mtts or as well as you potentially could if you're folding aces in this spot.

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We each have our own way to play, I play to survivor a tournament, I do not risk my tournament life on one play (even praying to poker gods with aces). Depending on the effective stack sizes in the tournament I might shove, but if it is a huge determination in stack size, I will not risk my stack on a reckless play in a tournament by investing only in top pair. In short I never go broke on one pair, if I bust out it is because of the turn or river, not hoping aces to win pre-flop with a shove of my whole stack against two other opponents lol

That to me is just gambling.

In a cash game I might gamble it depending on what I am risking, but not in a tournament. Patience is a huge factor in winning a tournament, not chasing AA that could ruin my tournament life because it is one +EV play.

caracaski220

Yes you want to extract value. But if you let 3 or 4 players in , odds are very good they will connect and take your chips. You want one or to players aginst you tops. Just today I have seen, in 3 tourneys aces get cracked every time for slow playing.

Everyone plays the way they think is right, the main thing is to achieve a positive result, the world will not collapse if you drop aces, the main thing then is not to spend a lot of time thinking about the correctness of this decision.

ohshootmybad said:

well played.

seriously, that's all you need. nothing else matters. the results don't matter. who cares if your aces got cracked, you made the right play. ask yourself, would you be making this post if your aces had won? probably not. so stop paying so much attention to what the results are and focus on making +ev decisions.

Click to expand...

ohshootmybad said:

no, aces do not drop to 50% equity against 2 players, or even 3 players. iirc, against 2 opponents, aces still have ~73% equity to win and i think it's 67% equity against 3 opponents.

but that doesn't matter because, unless this is a satellite bubble, you should never, ever, ever, ever be folding aces preflop. please don't me you're good enough to fold aces preflop to play with 'skill' later in the tournament. that is so silly. name one poker professional that has ever said "you should fold aces agaisnt multiple players because you have a better chance of losing." you can't because they would never say that. so, why do you think you can fold here and give up a huge equity edge over your opponents? because of your skill level? there are a ton of very skilled professional players that never fold here. are you better than them?

don't fold aces here. seriously.

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My thoughts exactly, you beat me to it and saved me the time of typing this out myself. AA is good. You shouldn't be folding literally the best possible starting hand just like that - if you are, then that is way too nitty. It is obviously different on a late street situation where I might fold pocket Aces in the face of pressure/ board texture I don't like (such as 4 on board to a flush or something like that). However, pre-flop, we are not folding Aces.

Even KK shouldn't be folded pre-flop in most ALL cases. The chance of AA versus KK preflop is so unlikely (although poosible: I've lost with KK vs AA preflop before - it kind of sucks, but that is part of the math: it isn't 100% and I don't regret that play at all).

Reminds me of something that Daniel Negraenu said. His story went something like this:
One time he had pocket Kings and was really sure his opponent had to have had AA, so Daniel folded KK face-up. His opponent then turned over QQ. "Yikes!" He said, he will never do that again xD

Same point here. playing AA aggressively like you did is the correct play; you won't win 100%, but that is part of the game. You made the correct decision to go all-in there.