Pocket Aces and Limping In

As long as I've been writing about poker, I have heard two questions asked again and again. First, is pocket aces really the best hand, or are some other hands better? And second, should you limp into the pot with them sometimes, or should you always raise? I'd like to put these questions to rest in this column.



Someone recently wrote me the following:



The other night, I was playing a live game in a casino and another player said he preferred playing 7-6 suited to pocket aces. He said he had lost thousands with aces but had won loads with 7-6 suited. I countered by suggesting that he wasn't taking notes, so he couldn't produce any evidence to prove his assertion.


Another friend of mine insists that "the pros say jack-ten is a better hand than aces." I strongly disagree with him, but he is completely adamant about it. I understand that in really deep-stacked games, a player who plays aces very poorly (by tipping the strength of his hand preflop and then refusing to release it post-flop) could lose money with them against a good player who has position with J-10. But won't this bad player also lose with J-10? What do you think?



While I suppose that it's theoretically possible for players to play pocket aces so badly that they actually do better with J-10 suited (presumably because they're far less likely to do something horrendously stupid with J-10 suited), in practice, I would highly doubt that any such players exist anywhere in the world.



And even if such players were to exist, they would have to play almost exclusively in extremely deep-stacked live games (stacks of 500 big blinds and deeper) to perform the feat of actually doing worse with pocket aces than with J-10 suited.



Anyone who uses tracking software and has more than a few hundred hands of online no-limit hold'em in his database will see that J-10 suited is certainly not better than A-A. Indeed, I would be surprised to see any decent-sized sample of hands (say, a month's worth of regular play) in which A-A did not place first in winnings. It is by far the most profitable hand.



So my verdict is that my reader's friends who think suited connectors perform better than pocket aces are misinformed.



But I've noticed that live-game players often do tend to play aces (in particular) very badly. An obvious way to misplay aces is to hold on to them too long in the face of overwhelming evidence that they're no good. But I actually don't see that mistake as often as I see a different one.



The most frequent mistake that I see live-game players make with aces is to play them far too timidly. "You'll either win a little or lose a lot with those aces." That's the mindset. It's completely wrong. Believe me, I usually win with aces, and I win plenty of all-in pots with them, too.



But when you buy into the "win a little or lose a lot" mindset, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. You go into damage-control mode as soon as the flop comes out. You don't bet your hand for value. You don't make money from players with top pair and drawing hands. You give free cards. You make wimpy bets or check the hand down. You take free showdowns instead of making those ever important river value-bets.



But even if your approach to playing aces is all wrong, I still think you'll make more with them than you will with J-10 suited. The hand is just far stronger. Also, most players tend to raise preflop with aces but limp in with suited connectors. If you raise with aces but limp in with J-10 suited, I think it's nearly guaranteed that you'll win more with the aces.



This brings me to my second topic. There's a lot of confusion surrounding the decision of whether to raise preflop or to limp in. In most of my columns and videos, I generally recommend limping in quite rarely, and almost always raising if no one has done so already. Yet in my book, No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice, co-authored with David Sklansky, we discuss the virtues of limping in. What gives?



Raising preflop has a lot going for it. But in some circumstances, with certain stack sizes and opponent types, limping in can be good, as well. However, in most small- and medium-stakes cash-game situations, I think one simple factor tilts the scale almost always in favor of raising: the bigger the pot, the more money a good player can win.



It's simple. If you are better than your opponents, you'll win more money, on average, playing pots that start at $50 than pots that start at $10. Just as you'll win more if there's more money on the table, and if the blinds go up, you'll win more if the pots on the flop tend to start out bigger.



Of course, there are balancing factors. If the blinds get too big compared to the stacks, your relative edge will shrink. And if you are making huge preflop pots with so-so hands, your edge will disappear, as well. But in games with stacks of 100 big blinds and generally passive opponents, I think you'll almost always perform better by raising preflop rather than limping, simply because you'll be playing for a lot more money.



So these are my final answers to the two common questions. Yes, pocket aces are far better than any other hand. If you think you do better with suited connectors, you're almost certainly mistaken. If you doubt me, take a notebook with you when you play and write down how you do on every pot in which you have aces, and every pot in which you have a suited connector. After a few hundred hours of play, the aces are almost certainly, on a per-hand basis, going to be way ahead.



But that doesn't mean you can't play your aces better. Aces are a potent weapon, not a fragile liability. When you get aces, attack. Bet them. Get value from players with top pair and draws. You'll be surprised at how much you can win with them even if you don't hit a set.



If you're a good player with an edge on your opponents, you're almost always better off raising preflop than limping in. Although there are theoretical trade-offs for either decision, in most games, you'll do better by raising simply because you're building bigger pots. It's like raising the stakes on your opponents. Bigger pots mean more money out there to win. In most situations, I think the balancing considerations just don't matter enough to change it up. Build yourself some nice pots, and the money will come your way.



Ed is a featured coach at StoxPoker.com. Also check out his online poker advice column, NotedPokerAuthority.com. He has authored four books on poker, most recently, Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume 1.