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Playing Ace-king In Texas Holdem
By doug tomlinson, Fri Dec 9th
Everyone who plays Texas Holdem knows that Ace-King is one ofthe very best starting hands. But, it is just that, a startinghand. It’s only 2 cards of a 7 card equation. In nearly everysituation, you want to come out firing with A-K as your holecards. (The exception would be when faced with a big raise froman early position bettor.) When the flop comes, you need toreassess your hand and think things through before you justassume your overcards are best. Like many other situations in Texas Holdem, knowing youropponents will help you gauge your situation when you hold A-Kand see a flop like 9-8-2. Since you bet preflop and werecalled, you assume your opponent is also holding good cards andthe flop may have missed them as badly as it missed you. Yourassumption will often times be correct, but they could beholding a pocket pair and be leading in the hand, or worse yethave pocket 9s, 8s, or 2s. Also, don’t forget that many poorplayers wouldn’t know good cards if they tripped over them andcould have called with A-x and paired the board. If your opponent checks, you could check and see a free card ormake a bet and try to pick the pot up right there. If they bet,you could raise to see if they are for real or fold. What youwant to avoid
is simply calling your opponent’s bet to see whatthe turn brings. If any card other than and Ace or King hits,you won’t know any more information than you did after the flop.Let’s say the turn brings a 4 and your opponent bets again, whatdo you do? To call a bet on the flop you had to think your handwas the best, so you must surely think it still is. So, you calla bet on the turn and one more on the river to find out thatyour opponent was holding 10-8 and only had second pair afterthe flop. At that point, it dawns on you that a raise after theflop could have won the pot right then. Instead, you called andlost 3 more bets in the hopes of catching a miracle card or thatyour Ace high would hold up. If you would have raised on theflop and been called or reraised it would have only cost you 2bets to learn more about the strength of your opponents hand.
Ace-King is a beautiful thing to see in your hole cards. Just besure
you play them wisely and they can bring you great happinessat the
poker table. |
