Playing AA from UTG

[LaMbaL]

Hey everyone,

Today I got AA UTG, and I started to wonder what the best play for AA here is. Raising from UTG seems to scare (and rightly so) most players, and I feel that you lose out on a lot of action with AA by raising UTG. You may be OOP, but obviously AA is strong enough to compensate the disadvantages.

How do you guys feel about limping rather than raising AA from UTG? And given a raiser, is reraising automatic or are there circumstances in which you would advocate calling and trapping (since limp-reraising from UTG practically screams AA)?

Im interested in hearing your insights on this.

[kazana]

Oh boy, you're in for a rough beating.
You'd better delete this post & account and try to get rid of any evidence that this question has ever been posed by you.

Or try the "my gf was mad at me and posted this to get back at me" line. Anything, try anything!

[SABR42]

Limp-reraising screams AA a lot more than just opening with it. Even if they call your re-raise, they typically will not give you a lot of action post-flop after the limp-reraise. Just open-raising it every time is perfectly fine.

I don't really play full ring, but my opening range from UTG FR is something like 88+, AQ+, AJs+, and an occasional 76s or something for deception, so if I raise from UTG it doesn't have to be a big pair necesarily.

There are times where I'll only call a raise with it (instead of 3-betting), such as when someone from late position makes a very large opening raise, and I have AA in the BB, I'll sometimes just call and then go for the check-raise on most flops, because I don't want to blow him off the hand so easily. From any position other than the BB I'll 3-bet AA 100% of the time because I don't want someone else to come along for the ride and try to outflop me cheaply.

[squidladder]

I think slowplaying AA in these limits just sucks.
There are just so many bad players who will call a 4BB raise from a UTG raiser that its just not worth slowplaying.
Maybe this would be a good line in 200NL and above but in the micro limits just raise from any position.

[Gondor]

Straight-forward play is your best move. Fancy play costs you more in the long run.

[LaMbaL]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh boy, you're in for a rough beating.
You'd better delete this post & account and try to get rid of any evidence that this question has ever been posed by you.


Or try the "my gf was mad at me and posted this to get back at me" line. Anything, try anything!

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

So far I seem to have dodged the rough beatings, but if neccesairy I can plead temporary insanity due to exam-stress. Ive been studying for hours now and Im getting pretty tired and distracted, and increasingly often my mind wanders off wondering about stuff like AA from UTG, anything to avoid studying [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

By the way, thanks for the responses. Raising is my standard play, but I have gotten so little action with it lately that I started to wonder if it was the optimal play.

[4_2_it]

This isn't a tourney where you hope to trap a short stack pushing AI with K high. There are no 'always' situations in poker, but always raise with AA UTG in FR. Of course I hope you have a few other hands you raise UTG as well.

[ColdSteel]

If your UTG raises aren't getting any action then I would first look at how you play other hands before you look at how you play AA.

[Dismas]

Playing an over pair out of position against multiple opponents sucks. Raise what you normally raise and if you get reraised take what ever action you think is most likely to lead getting all in before the flop.

If you want to get fancy with aces do it in position.

[Quester]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you guys feel about limping rather than raising AA from UTG? And given a raiser, is reraising automatic or are there circumstances in which you would advocate calling and trapping (since limp-reraising from UTG practically screams AA)?

Im interested in hearing your insights on this.

[/ QUOTE ]

The way I see it, if you're raising UTG and most fold, then you should be raising with more hands from UTG. Also, you should be okay with few callers when you raise AA UTG. It gives your opponents a great opportunity to make the second best hand, which gives you a great opportunity to take their stack.

But yeah, don't look at it as "whenever I raise UTG with AA everyone folds." Look at it as "whenever I raise UTG with AA everyone folds, so I should start raising a larger range of hands from UTG."

If you limp, you're encouraging correct play by your opponents. Make sure you give them every opportunity possible to make mistakes. The biggest mistake they can make here is to call your raise. But they won't get that chance if you don't give it to them.