Do you ever fold aces preflop?

[Vovk]

Just wondering how often (if at all) players can lay out AA before the flop — and what would justify it.

 

[Olzym]

Great question.

I have only ever folded aces before the flop once. I was on the bubble of a Sunday Millions event on PokerStars and only had one blind left. Ironically, I had aces a few hands before that and got all in pre flop against KK, for them to hit a K on the turn… leaving me with this blind.

I’ve not been unfortunate enough to be in the situation since, but I hate to say I’d probably do it again with such little blinds.

 

[yuya]

Folding AA is unthinkable in a cash game, but I believe it can be a valid decision in a tournament.

In a one-on-one all-in situation, AA has about an 18% chance of losing, but in a three-way pot, that chance increases to around 33%. There's a big difference between losing one out of five times and one out of three.

If you're confident in your skills and want to avoid relying on luck, it might be wise to fold in such spots.

 

[Pete_Stew]

I can imagine only one situation: You play a satelite and only one player has to bust before all the other players win their tickets:

The player with the least chips has only a few big blinds left. You are second in chips and the chipleader goes all in. You should fold AA here because the risk of not winning the ticket is to high even it's only about 20%, while you have a almost 100% chance to reach your goal by doing almost nothing.

 

[pentazepam]

You only fold AA preflop in some satellite situations.

 

[fundiver199]

As others have said, its correct to fold AA preflop in certain satellite situations, and also in certain DoN (Dubble or Nothing) situations. The determining factor is, that all the prices are the same. In this situation if you already have enough chips to be nearly 100% sure to cash, winning additional chips has no value. Years ago 888 Poker had some promotional hyperturbo satellites, that rewarded 600 x $5 tickets each.

In those you pretty much knew, how many chips you needed to cash. So when you had reached that number with a decent margin, the best strategy was to basically not play a single hand but just slow down the action as much as possible, until enough players had busted on the other tables. I think, I did actually fold AA preflop at least once in these satellites.

 

[sandy358]

I can imagine only one situation: You play a satelite and only one player has to bust before all the other players win their tickets:

The player with the least chips has only a few big blinds left. You are second in chips and the chipleader goes all in. You should fold AA here because the risk of not winning the ticket is to high even it's only about 20%, while you have a almost 100% chance to reach your goal by doing almost nothing.

I agree with the satellite part, but not this specific circumstance, in satellites it is much more often than you have described. If the amount of people left to bust is less than between your position and the payouts (i.e. you are 35th out of 58 and 50 are paid) - you are very likely to cash and can fold anything. There is no reaason to increase your stack, your payouts do not change depending on your place (unless it is one of these multi-level satellites with different tickets for different places, but these don't count here) - so if you call with AA, you push 80% of the time and lose chips or even bust the remaining 20%, basically pure -EV play.

But this is purely because of the ridiculously high ICM of satellite payout structure, in any other case you should basically never fold aces preflop (unless there are other obscure poker formats where it can be viable).

 

[sibkaz]

A must!!!! What if they have two jokers or four deuces!!!!

 

[sandy358]

Folding AA is unthinkable in a cash game, but I believe it can be a valid decision in a tournament.

In a one-on-one all-in situation, AA has about an 18% chance of losing, but in a three-way pot, that chance increases to around 33%. There's a big difference between losing one out of five times and one out of three.

If you're confident in your skills and want to avoid relying on luck, it might be wise to fold in such spots.

I would disagree with that here, multiway is just higher-risk higher-reward situation: if you win you triple, quadruple etc your bet, not just double.

Still you don't want to go multiway with aces, they can extract much more value from heads up than just to pray that no one of the bajillions of limpers did not flop 2 pair, but that means that you want to squeeze or iso-raise big with aces, not to fold them.

 

[sandy358]

A must!!!! What if they have two jokers or four deuces!!!!

Can't afford losing to a pocket royal flush in this economy.

 

[anasslaaleg]

I often fold them when something disturbs my attention and time passes or by a missed click otherwise I often push them,

 

[dzsire]

This has already come up as a question in another thread. I think the only time you can 'forgive' a fold is during the bubble phase, when you are about to win a serious prize after a long game (especially if you are a short stack).

 

[R.Holynskyi]

Just wondering how often (if at all) players can lay out AA before the flop — and what would justify it.

I don't know how this can be justified. Perhaps when the price of the issue is too high and there is only one player left before the ITM, perhaps, but I would hardly do it. I don't remember a single case when I would fold with such a hand preflop.

 

[dannystanks]

I’m never ever ever folding AA preflop unless it’s a satellite that we have wrapped up already. But even if we are short on the bubble I’m pushing and if we bubble we bubble that’s just the way it goes.

 

[Lolek123123123]

Just wondering how often (if at all) players can lay out AA before the flop — and what would justify it.

Did it once, because it was basically my gut telling me to do so. The flop came Aspades, Kclubs and Kspade. I asked myself: why did I fold?! And then turn comes Q of spades, then river a brick; 6hearts. Some guy went all-in and then they showed cards, of course it was an ace high flush. I couldve lost so much that hand. (It was an online table btw).