Going over some hands in my PT database...

[FirePhil]

Rank these three hands in order of how badly I played them.

Hand 1:
$.50/$1 NL 6 handed. Dealt AA in EP and limp, 2 other limpers and the BB see the flop of 9 6 3. BB checks, I bet $4, folded to BB who min raises to $8, I call. BB leads out for $15 on the turn and I fold.

Hand 2:
$.50/$1 NL 10 handed. AA on the button, 2 limpers to me and I make it $4, BB and one of the limpers in EP call. Flop comes 9 6 4, BB checks and EP min bets, I make it $4, BB folds and EP min-raises to $7, I make it $20, he pushes for $22 more and I call. He has 99.

Hand 3:
$1/$2 NL 10 handed. AQ UTG I make it $6 and get 2 callers. Flop comes A 8 6 with 2 spades, I lead out for $12. MP makes it $29 and LP calls, I jam for $180 total and both call. MP has 8c6c, LP has 9sTs. I hit a Q on the turn but MP hits another 8 on the river.

I play good, no?

[PokerWoody]

Best

Hand 2
Hand 1
Hand 3

Worst

[Thor2007]

I agree with pokerwoody.

Limping with the aces was a bad idea. I occassionally minimum raise in an early position with them but I have been informed that will cost me in the long run - so no more of that.

Hand 2, there aint much u can do really, he has a set but could easily have tried to push u off the hand with an overpair to the flop.

[PokerWoody]

Limping with the aces was a bad idea. I occassionally minimum raise in an early position with them but I have been informed that will cost me in the long run - so no more of that

Limping with Aces is okay as part of a balanced strategy although generally online doesn't require that sort of balanced strategy IMO. You should limp with Aces if a) you oppoents are observant and b) you have played/will play many many hands with them.

Min raising Aces from EP is always horrible.

[Thor2007]

Basically you're saying limp with aces to mix it up? Throw them off?

I read something along those lines on Phil Hellmuth's blog, about mixing it up if you are playing with players who know your game.

So what's so bad about the minimum raise? If someone has a strong hand in a later position there is a good chance they will come over the top, surely then its time to move all in and hope your hand holds... You are big favourite regardless of what they have.

I appreciate that this wont happen too often, and thats why I occassionally limp with them.

[FirePhil]

So what's so bad about the minimum raise? If someone has a strong hand in a later position there is a good chance they will come over the top, surely then its time to move all in and hope your hand holds... You are big favourite regardless of what they have

If that's your plan why not limp and increase the chances of a raise behind you?

[PokerWoody]

Basically you're saying limp with aces to mix it up? Throw them off?

Yes, but this only applies to people who are good enough to be paying attention to what you are doing. You don’t want to be in a situation where you limp in EP so you opponent knows you DON’T have a big hand.

I also reckon you’re gonna need to have played quite a few thousand hands with this person in order for it to be valid. If we say you are going to limp Aces 20% of the time then you are limping aces once every ~1100 hands . Also your hand needs to go to showdown in order for your opponent to pick up on any of this information, which only happens about 20% of the time so you will need to play even more hands. If you also add to this that limping Aces is generally a EP thing, (your limp % should be roughly the same as the amount of hands you are limping from any postion and you should be limping very few hands very seldomly from LP), then you can probably add some more hands to this total.

So what's so bad about the minimum raise? If someone has a strong hand in a later position there is a good chance they will come over the top, surely then its time to move all in and hope your hand holds... You are big favourite regardless of what they have.

If someone has a big hand they are likely to come over the top of you anyway. A min raise serves no purpose preflop, there are occasional times to bring out a min raise but it is never preflop. When you know you have the best hand you should be offering you opponents bad odds to out draw you, especially when the reverse implied odds are high, a min raise fails to do this.

[PokerWoody]

Rank these three hands in order of how badly I played them.

So what hand you you reckon you played worst?

[FirePhil]

Same order you gave, hand 3 was shocking.

I don't like how weakly I played hand 1 either. I think I probably need to re-raise the flop or call the turn bet, it's a very dry board to be folding aces to such a small amount of pressure.

Hand 2 I don't think is too bad at that level, still plenty hands I beat. Maybe slow down after he 3 bets the flop though.

[PokerWoody]

Yeah, hand 2 is fine. You should always lose the max to a short stack when you have aces on a 9 high board. Could have raised a little more preflop but meh.

Hand 1 is impossible to say without a read on the player.

Hand 3 is not good. I couldn't work out if you thought you were bluffing or protecting you hand. Either way, it's the wrong spot for either play!