How Hard Is It

[Sweetness]

How hard is it for you to lay down pocket pair Aces or ppK or AK? When do you decide that they just are not going to win? Also when you get these how big do you bet pre-flop and would you go allin pre-flop with any of these three hands.

Do you feel that by going allin preflop it is worth the potential of being put out of the game or would you rather take the chance to gain some chips on them and then go allin after the flop?

[The Professor]

Pocket Aces / Kings are pretty hard to lay down pre-flop and there is not many situations where you would do so. Maybe around the bubble of a satellite tournament you would if you were comfortable in chips and just needed to sit it out to win your satellite seat.

Kings can be layed down after the flop quite easily, but it's pretty tough to do so before the flop.

AK is a different story - remembering of course that AK is no more than an Ace high hand unless you hit a card. This hand is alot easier to lay down before and after the flop.

How much to bet - depends on the situation and whether your talking about tournament or cash games. In general you want to bet for value with these hands to get some money in the pot, and at the same time get the bet size right to chase most people out the pot, but still keep ideally one opponent in the pot.

Kings there is an argument for raising more to stop people getting in the hand with Ace-Rag and outdrawing you on the flop.

The only time I would be moving all in before the flop with Aces is in a tournament situation where I had been very aggressive recently and been moving all in to steal blinds etc ie: in the hope that other players might call thinking I was on the steal.

[aces_up]

I see a lot of people who think AK is gold and they get beat by 22. I think any pair can be mucked after the flop if the flop looks bad and another player is betting big. It just depends on what that other players has been doing and whether you think he hit something that can crack your pair.
AA, KK and QQ preflop are hard to laydown and you see even the pro's get into trouble with them preflop if they are short stacked and they feel they have to push. Any pair can be beat. For KK and QQ and even JJ it's wise to raise preflop and make it prohibitively expensive for someone on A-rag, suited cards or a smaller pair to draw out on you. I raise higher preflop on JJ than KK most times because I'd rather not get called.

But you also have to be careful of playing them the same way all the time or others will figure it out. I also frequently make small to medium preflop raises with AA if there are a lot of players in the pot because I want to thin the field - too many players means to many draws and increases the chance of getting my AA cracked.

[flopmistress]

It's not easy to lay em down, but sometimes you just know you are beat and if it's expensive them I let em go. I think it's almost a gut thing, you get a feel for the others and how they play and you see what's on the board, and you just know you don't have it. Sometimes you think if it's cheap enough you should pay them off, but you have to know whether they are prone to trapping or not because that cheap bet could be them trying to extract more from you.