The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

There is only one hand you can hold pre-flop in texas hold 'em that you are 100% sure is the best hand: pocket rockets; Aces. No matter what the other players do, whether they limp in, raise, or go all-in, you're putting your chips in the middle with Aces every time. (There are limited exceptions. See Johnny's blog for more details!).

Most of the time (219 times out of 220) you will NOT get Aces. And that rings true for every player. Suppose you're looking down at pocket Kings, you raise and then get re-raised all-in. If you call that hand and you end up being up against Aces, more power to them. Running into that predicament is just extremely bad luck. If someone told me they went broke with pocket Kings in that fashion, I would NOT think of them as a bad player, just a very unlucky one.

Of course, this is a different situation than if you see a flop with an Ace on board. If they bet into you with an Ace showing, there is a good chance they DID make a pair of aces in which case you can't feel too bad for folding. You cannot get too stubborn and say to yourself, "Well, I got pocket Kings so I'm calling bets all the way to the river". If you lose all your chips that way, that's just bad poker on your part.

I've folded strong hands pre-flop before: Ace-King for example if I didn't want to race. Ace-Queen, Ace-Jack...into the muck they have gone depending on the circumstances (usually a raise followed by a re-reraise, or if I'm jeopardizing too many chips if I think I'm in a coin-flip situation). I have never, ever, folded pocket Aces or Kings. I don't think I've ever let go of Queens, but I have folded Jacks when I thought I was beat.

My point is when you get good hands, play them. So many times I've seen someone lay down a big pocket pair because they thought they were against Aces, but it really turned out they were folding to Ace-King or pocket tens. 1995 Main Event bracelet winner Dan Harrington even said, despite other players who may claim they can see into your soul, no one is savvy enough to know whether a player truly has Aces while they're holding Kings. Even if you're wrong once in a while, more times than not, you will be holding the best hand thus winning more chips.