Updated 11/07/2008 by your Online Poker Tutor!!!

Big Slick, one of the most beautiful Poker Preflop hands in Hold Em, is also one of the toughest hands to play effectively POST-Flop, along with the sometimes tempting Ace-Rag.  This is because of the tremendous amount of guesswork you will have to do once you read the Board.  Often you will find yourself wondering how to proceed, trying to carefully navigate the treacherous landscape of a board filled with draws and other intimidating possibilities.  Very often you will get in too deep holding Ace King, only to find yourself Pot-COMMITTED if your Top Pair and top KICKER are not enough to win, which will very often be the case.  On those occasions when you run into a set, straight, or flush, you will be a heavy underdog, hoping desperately for Runner-Runner miracle cards to complete a marathon finish suckout.  This is not an ideal fashion in which to take down a pot.  This point is similar to the points delineated in another article "Til Death Do Us Part" in that I feel that this is another hand which sucks novice Amateur players in even when they are all but Drawing Dead.  Of course, I am not arguing that hands like AA, KK, and AK are not strong, since they are among the best poker preflop hands in hold em. I am simply warning readers that these hands are vulnerable in many circumstances and that they should not be regarded as THE NUTS.  For instance, presume you have been dealt AK Off Suit, raise PRE-FLOP and are called by the button and the Big Blind.  The FLOP comes K-J-9 with two diamonds.  Both of your cards are black.  On the surface you appear to be fairly strong here with TOP PAIR and top KICKER.  However, you are way behind several possible hole card combinations: pocket Aces, whose pair is better and has your Ace crushed, pocket Kings, Jacks, and 9s, who have each made a set, Q/10, who has flopped a straight, K/J, K/9, and J/9, who all have made 2 pair.  You are also threatened by 8/10 who has picked up an open-ended straight draw, and any two diamonds who now have a FOUR-FLUSH, both of which will frequently draw out on your Kings.  As you can see, your lead in this hand is precarious, and even a large bet may not be sufficient to protect what may or may not be the best hand at the moment.  If you are in fact already bested you are now doomed to lose a fortune in a massive pot, and even if your opponent is merely on a draw he may accept the risk and make the Call, especially if he is a bad player.  Against such a bad player, either a fish or donk, it may be best to allow him to see the next card cheaply and then punish him for attempting to draw out on you if the Turn card is indeed a Blank, but in many cases it will be hard to tell whether he has a made hand or a draw when an ominous FLOP comes down.  In my opinion it is usually wise to play a small to medium pot with a paired AK, rather than shoving your whole Stack in the center on top pair, particularly at a full table in a multiway pot.  All too often AK is the last hand a player is dealt.

Now let us look at ARs, or Ace-rag.  This situation is even more complex and dangerous, for all of the reasons enumerated above as well as the concern of being outkicked when you catch an Ace.  These hands are most effective when they are Suited and you complete your Nut Flush, or at the very least connect solidly with the flop with 2 pair or a rag set with the mighty Ace kicker, allowing you an opportunity to cold deck some unsuspecting rookie or weakie.  Unfortunately, this will not happen often, so these hands must be played cautiously and discarded without a second thought when you only pair your Ace, especially in a multiway pot.  Many inexperienced amateur players bust wielding AR's (Ace-rag) while in a shootout with a smart, tricky player armed with AK or even Pocket Rockets.  This is why one must proceed carefully and deliberately with an AR in hand.  It is generally a good idea not to count an Ace as an out when playing this type of trash hand unless the table is short-handed or heads-up, in which case good judgment based on strong HAND READING SKILLS must guide you to your best and most profitable course of Action.  Instead look to use these hands when the pot odds are favourable to flop a bulletproof  MONSTER in disguise and let an aggressive player with a premium Ace or Pocket Pair fire some of his ammunition into your pot, then ambush him on the river with an unexpected Value Bet to mercilessly extract every last Chip possible from his now diminished stockpile.  If, however, you are the one driving the action with an AR in hand and an Ace on the board, then you are the one being trapped-by your own poor play. Even if you are fortunate enough to have the only Ace in play during this hand, the other guy will probably only play back at you if he can beat an Ace, in which case you are still in trouble.  This is a classic REVERSE IMPLIED ODDS scenario.  Do not allow yourself to get in over your head with this Weak Ace.  If you miss your flush or 2 pair just Muck the hand and be eager to seize the next opportunity no worse off for having tried. 

To illustrate these poker lessons, here are a few more real-life examples of hands I played in MTTs (Multi-Table Tournaments).  The first is a recounting of a hand I played holding AK.  The other two I witnessed in the early stages of separate online tourneys.

I held AK off suit in early position, and made a standard raise of 3 1/2 times the BB.  Action folds around to the Cut Off who reraises 3 times my bet.  The Button and Blinds all Fold, and I call.  The FLOP is A-3-K, and I had just made top two pair.  I bet out 1/2 the pot.  The Cut Off smooth calls.  The TURN is a K.  I bet 2/3 of the new pot, he reraises, then I go All-In with my Full House, Kings full of Aces, the second best possible Full House in the deck.  He insta-calls and flips over pocket Aces, having made the NUT Full House, Aces full of Kings.  Ouch!!!

Had I made a mistake in this situation?  YES!!!  I had been knocked out of the tournament.  While it is true that most players would have gone broke in this spot, upon further review an objective observer with some experience and decent hand reading skills could easily identify the signs that I ignored.  Let us rewind to the PRE-FLOP action.  He had reraised an early position raise, and it was a healthy reraise at that.  This should have been a clue that he almost certainly had a high pocket pair, as this is a  fairly unusual move for all but the most recklessly loose and aggressive players.  Secondly, the flop contained both an Ace and a King, scare cards to anyone who was not holding these cards himself.  Despite this ostensibly threatening FLOP, he smooth called, demonstrating some definite strength that I should have recognized.  I figured he had an Ace or a King with a decent kicker and wanted to see another card, unaware that I held the AK firepower.  OOPS!!!  Bad read.  I briefly entertained the notion he might have held a set of Kings, but the TURN dispelled that notion since it made it mathematically impossible.  It never occurred to me for some reason that he may have a set of Aces, and that my boat may have filled his even more powerful hand.  I have no explanation for that except that AK clouds your judgment by giving you a false feeling of invincibility.  This feeling is indeed false.  Had I been able to watch the developments in Instant Replay on the Jumbotron I might have deduced that I was beaten and managed to muster the self-control to bitterly Discard the hand.  Maybe next time.

Another instance where an AK backfired occurred in the very first hand of an online poker MTT.  An early position raiser  fired a sizeable chunk of his starting chips into the pot pre-flop and got two callers, the Hijack Seat and the Button.  It was pretty obvious based on the first player's overbet that he held an AK or maybe AQ, so I was a little surprised at the fireworks when the flop came down 4-A-A.  The original raiser bet 2/3 the size of the pot, the Hijack seat reraised, and the Button reraised ALL-IN.  I knew the first man had AK based on the size of both his bets, and then figured maybe the second player had an Ace also, but, with all the Aces accounted for, what could the last guy have that he would risk it all on the very first hand he was dealt?  At any rate, the other two players called ALL-IN, each showing their powerhouse AK's!!!  A moment later, however, they both realized that they were all but drawing dead when the Button revealed pocket 4's!!! He had flopped a Full House using their top set against them!!!  Now they found themselves drawing to the last King in the deck to fill their hands (I had folded KQ off suit) and overtake the improbable leader with mighty pocket 4's!!!  Needless to say, their AKs' fired blanks on the next two streets and the Button hit a lead off triple to eliminate them both.  This flop hadn't even looked hazardous, yet AK had promised but not delivered yet again. Now that is a pain in the Ace!

One more example of a pain in the Ace illustrates the vulnerability of an AR in a high-powered shootout.  I cannot recall the positions of these two players, but they engaged in a pre-flop raising war before finally settling on 500 chips to go (the blinds were 30/60).  Rags haunted the flop which came 8 high, yet both players launched more chips into the middle.  The turn found an Ace.  More sparks flew eventually leaving the two donks nearly ALL-IN prior to the River, which delivered a 6.  One checks, the other min-bets, the first goes ALL-IN for around 250 more chips, just a tiny fraction of the pot these two imbeciles had created.  The other calls, of course, since he had an Ace.  The first had A-3 and the second had Ace-deuce.  I could not help but laugh aloud at my computer desk wondering what they were thinking.  Absolutely idiotic.  Neither had had any reason at all to even play the hand, much less stake their Buy-In on such utter trash.  Neither had made two pair nor should they have believed that their Ace could have stood up to a hand that kept betting into them, but they had both been willing to go broke on an taking a shot with an AR.  This happens quite frequently at low buy-ins, as they are filled with idiots who worship any Ace they are blessed to wake up with, usually only to go broke a few rounds in when they end up dominated by a real Ace.  AR's can be a powerful weapon when played correctly, but in the hands of a foolhardy Ace worshipper they typically result in maniacal suicide when pitted against a better player with a stronger Ace.  In this specific case, though, it resulted in a Split Pot, as favourable an outcome as one could hope for after so grossly misplaying a hand.  A consequence they probably had not considered, however, was that every player at that table took aim at them since they had proven that they were donks after having shown down that garbage, and neither survived to the next break.  Exercise good judgment when playing these hands and try to catch someone off guard with a hand noone would likely put you on, but do not overvalue an AR.  Sometimes you can win a smallish pot with this type holding, but going too far with it will normally cost you a big one.   Avoid being taken to school with poker lessons by someone armed with the big firepower and a solid online poker Strategy as ammunition.

Aces can be extremely powerful in the right hands and the right circumstances.  One who learns to play them wisely and recognize a good opportunity to utilize such an advantage in his Internet Poker Strategy is a tough player to beat, but one who mistakenly believes that a miracle Ace high hand will carry the day will find himself packing up and heading off to the next pain in the Ace tournament.  All too often AK is the last hand a player is dealt, so beware!!!

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L337 NUB, your friendly online poker tutor!!!