Free Poker Guide – Poker Tournament and Online Play with Big Pairs
In this free poker article we discuss how to play with big pairs like AA, KK, QQ and JJ
With the best hand, AA it is very important to look for big raise or re-raise if someone raises before you. It is a mistake in strategy with AA to just call a raise because you are missing the opportunity to get more money into the pot with the best hand and more important thing is that you are giving players with weaker hands the opportunity to improve their hands on the flop.
Your goal is to force others to fold or to think you are bluffing with one big card or two big cards and call your big raise. It is important when playing with AA not to slow play with small raise so you won’t allow your opponents to improve on the flop and maybe on future streets and also you will thin out number of opponents.
After the flop you should do big raise not giving anyone chance to call for any straights, flushes or drawing hands for small amount of chips. However, there is always possibility that one of your opponents has made a better flop and so you should be aware of the fact that you may no longer hold the best hand. But in spite of this, you will normally still be ahead and so you should continue to build the pot unless you are quite sure that you are no longer ahead.
Raising before the “flop” with cards such as King / King, Queen / Queen or Jack / Jack is a good idea. Imagine if a player has an Ace with a lower card, the odds are on your side that you will face better cards than this before “the flop”. By raising will lower the amount of players who want to see “the flop”- you want to cap the amount of players who your playing against with either of these card duo’s as the opposition can effortless end up with better cards by receiving an Ace on the “flop”.
On the flop there will be two situations: you will face overcards or you won’t. If there are no overcards on the flop, you should continue to raise. Second situation with overcards on the board is more difficult for you but I suggest to raise a 3 or 4 times a big blind and then evaluate you situation after opponent responds to your raise. If he just calls be patient and cautious because it is unlikely that you will win a big pot any more in this situation. If pot gets bigger you must be prepared to let the hand go.
Although it’s not an exact science playing with big pairs if you go for right raises before flops you have a better chance of taking the money. One thing to think about though is the possibility that the opposing players could have better cards than you; especially if they’re playing strongly, gambling and raising too.
I look forward to seeing you at the free poker tables soon!
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