Pocket Aces when You’ve ‘Missed’ the Flop
So you are playing online poker a couple spots off the button and you look down and find the hand you are always wishing for: two black aces, looking up at you, ready to make money. You make your regular 3x or 4x size raise, and a poker player or two after you makes the call.
Great, right? You want a little bit of action on your aces, though not too much. Two players coming in after you with the aces seems just fine.
The flop with aces most of the time, when not an outright scare board like all three of the same suit that you don’t have, isn’t going to improve you, except for when you flop a third ace. The question then becomes: how much did it help my opponent.
Obviously you are hoping that it helped your opponent enough to make them interested in putting more of their money in and still lose, but not enough that they can beat your single top pair. Against most of these boards it will be hard to tell when they’ve caught up, as on most regular boards it is hard to give credit for two pair or trips.
The question then, in deciding how to act, comes down to comparing the texture of the board to the style of your opponent. If they are the type to only play with a monster, then when they come after you on those boards, you might have to be ready to throw your hand away. Remember this next time you play online poker.
