Limping with Aces - Good examples?

[Alex Scott]

Further to my other post - I'm also writing an article about Limping with Aces, inspired by Daniel Negreanu's comments in his blog, where he said that limping with aces is a 'cardinal sin according to some poker literature' (don't think I've ever read a book that said that, but he obviously has).

Anyway, I'm happy with the article but I'm looking for hand examples. Ideally, I'm looking for one hand where limping with aces works out really well for the hero (perhaps he limps with aces, and they end up winning a big pot from the big blind when they flop top pair or something), and one hand where it doesn't work out well (perhaps they let the entire field in cheap, and somebody flops a funky two pair and busts them).

The two hands need to involve famous players, and ideally should involve deep stacks, as I'm not really writing about crapshoot strategy!

Any suggestions?

PS. Apologies if this is in the wrong part of the forum - this isn't the most user-friendly place.

[Red_Diamond]

Didn't Malmuth and Sklansky already point out ages ago it is +ev to limp with AA even in late position sometimes?

It's a great counter for those Genius players who try to do queeze plays, not to mention some other interesting things.

[SplawnDarts]

Negranu himslef has a hand in his cardplayer column sometime in the last two years where a slowplayed AA butchered him. maybe I can find it when I get home.

If you want to write a sound article, however, you need to look at the expectation when you slowplay, not one example where it worked. The problem with slow aces is that you never get any infomation about your opponents hand (unless you take over the betting partway through the hand). The later you wait to take over the betting, the higher the chance you'll be outdrawn and have no evidence of it, but the more money you'll trap. Since most players like to know where they stand when playing NL, slowplaying AA is not a popular tactic in most circles.

[BigBuffet]

It depends who is seeing the flop with you. If you are in LP and those in the hand are

1) 'good' players, you can limp and try to outplay them on the flop

2) 'donks', you can jack it and try to get them to fold pf

3) combination, use #2

[gull]

[ QUOTE ]
It depends who is seeing the flop with you. If you are in LP and those in the hand are

1) 'good' players, you can limp and try to outplay them on the flop

2) 'donks', you can jack it and try to get them to fold pf

3) combination, use #2

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're holding AA, you're ALWAYS raising for value.

[BigBuffet]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It depends who is seeing the flop with you. If you are in LP and those in the hand are

1) 'good' players, you can limp and try to outplay them on the flop

2) 'donks', you can jack it and try to get them to fold pf

3) combination, use #2

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're holding AA, you're ALWAYS raising for value.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but I am saying you cans ometimes raise on the flop instead of preflop. Sometimes it's best not to telegraph you have a big pair if you can outplay good players postflop.

As I said, it depends on who you will see the flop with and how good of a player you are. If you raise preflop, you give away information. Some players will call just to try and bust your AA or KK. And you still don't know what they have...

And it's not like slowplaying big pp preflop will make you predictable, unless you are fortunate enough to get more than average number of them.

[Alex Scott]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to write a sound article, however, you need to look at the expectation when you slowplay, not one example where it worked.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I'm doing, although I'm not looking at expectation as such, but taking a more general view of the benefits and pitfalls of slowplaying aces. British poker magazines aren't quite as advanced when it comes to strategy as American ones (with the exception of CardPlayer Europe of course), so a detailed discussion of expectation in various situations would just go over the head of most of the readers.

One of the things I focus on most is that you'll have difficult decisions to make after the flop because by limping you'll often limit the amount of information you get from your opponents. Ideally I'd like a hand example that illustrates this - I do remember Negreanu writing about one in a CardPlayer, will have to sift through my collection.

On the flipside, there are obvious benefits to limping (concealing your hand, inducing bluffs etc), and I talk about those. I'd like another hand that illustrates the benefits. Come to think of it, I might have to check out that Poker Superstars II episode where David Sklansky picks them up about a billion times - he's bound to have limped at least once!

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to write a sound article, however, you need to look at the expectation when you slowplay, not one example where it worked.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on the audience and its definition of sound. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In principle I agree with you. Small sample and all.

In practice, it's easier to teach with a example. Few people would learn as readily from a dump of PokerTracker stats. That doesn't mean that you can't use those illustrative hands to teach sound long term principles.

Ideally the OP should consider the expectation himself, decide under what conditions it's appropriate to slowplay, and then as appropriate to the audience either present his work or summarize it, with an example either way.

Or he can just write on morphic resonance, sell it to the gullible, and the games won't get any tougher.

[Red_Diamond]

I find myself often slowplaying AA more and more all the time. I know this is a big no-no to many, but I believe mainly because people get too tied to the hand. I have no problems throwing away AA or KK after the flop.

[Vicarious]

[ QUOTE ]
Further to my other post - I'm also writing an article about Limping with Aces

[/ QUOTE ]

Another confession, didn't read all replies.

If more than half of the players see every flop (historically), I limp. The more callers I get, the more likely I'll get a very huge pot in return. If fewer than 1/3 of players see the flop (historically again), I raise 3-4x.

I don't limp very often, but if a bunch of loose players are around I'll consider the above and pull in a huge pot more often than not.