Aces Cracked in NLH - Care to share your story?

Yeah, I got caught up in the Moneymaker poker craze. I watched poker endlessly it seemed. But I never played until I got a postcard about a $150 tourney at Harrahs A.C. I think this was around 2005 or 2006.

How much of a novice was I? It had been about 15 years since I had last played ANY type of poker, and back then, I wasn't clear about what beat what.

So the very first time I play No Limit Hold-Em is in a tourney with a $150 buy in. At least by now, from watching poker on TV, I had a clear understanding of hand ranks.

My wife, being the compulsive gambler she is, doesn't need much of an excuse to go to a casino, so we went. She played slots, and assumed I'd be out of the tourney in 15 minutes.

I'm on the line to register, the guy in front of me is commenting to me that he played last week and busted out on the bubble. I knew what that meant. I figured even though he missed the money, he must know what he was doing. It turns out he is seated on my left. Great.

As we're waiting to start, people are talking, and I'm like a sponge soaking in this info. The thing that stood out is "Pocket Aces? Might as well fold them!" Well I knew that couldn't be right, but in the next hour or so, I saw people had aces four times, and three times the aces lost. So I started to think it might be right!

Interestingly, the guy I met on the registration line had already busted out.

Then I got them. Pocket Aces! Of course I'm not gonna fold, but I'm not gonna get crazy either. Limp in and see a flop. Ace on the flop. Trips! (of course, now I know that's a set, but back then....) So I'm feeling better, but still wary, so I still don't get crazy or too aggressive. But I do bet. And bet the turn. And call a raise. (Oops. I didn't see that as a red flag).

When the hand was over, I was up against one guy who was all in and I called. He had a straight, and I didn't even realize that a straight was possible.

I lost nearly every chip. I'm down to 300, and the blinds were 400 / 800 at this point.

Right then, me and my measley 300 chips get moved to a different table - into the big blind seat. I didn't even look at my cards. Heck, I didn't even sit down.

I just waited for the side pot play to finish, and to see what I needed to beat. I don't remember what it was, but I turned over my cards to reveal... you guessed it... Pocket Aces.

And they lost again.



Yeah, mucking pocket aces is starting to sound like the right thing to do!

Texas Hold-em, right?

I don't know how accurate it is when they show the odds of winning for each hand, next to the player's cards they show, but you do see pocket aces not being so hot as instinct suggests.

a low pair is dreck for sure, and I can understand that, but I had no instinct "ace, king suited" can look almost as good. So learned something from TV.

Pocket aces are actually pretty great. You're a huge favorite against any hand, and your preflop odds of beating any other individual hand never drop below about 80%.

The thing is, against any random 5 hands (say) your odds of winning are much worse, but you will still always be getting value on any preflop callers. The big problem with aces is that some people act like they should be invincible with them and then get beat and complain about it. To paraphrase David Sklansky, though, you should be happy when bad players get lucky against your huge hands -- you got a lot of value from their bad calls, and you will ultimately make money from them given enough hands.

Back to the thread title: My all time favorite "Aces cracked" story actually comes from a low stakes limit game. I was playing $2/4 limit (I know, I'm a huge roller) at the Monte Carlo near the peak of the poker craze, when there were still a lot of fun, loose, limit games (I prefer limit to NLH).

I get aces in late position and a guy before me raises. We get some callers, I reraise, and the original raiser three bets. One person between us calls, I raise again to cap it, and both guys call. Calling 4 raises with garbage isn't really that unheard of at these kinds of games, but the other raiser in the hand seemed like a decent player so I put him on a good hand.

Flop comes some garbage (no straight or flush or any big cards) and me and the raiser cap it again, with the guy in between us calling everything. We're all laughing and having fun with it, and I tell the table that I have aces and I'm pretty sure the other raiser has kings or aces and I have no clue what the caller has.

Two more blanks on the turn and the river, and we cap each street. At this point there is a gigantic pot for a $2/4 game. I turn over my aces, the other raiser turns over his (unimproved) kings, and the guy between us? 8-5 unsuited, but he spiked an 8 on the river to make two pair and drag the pot.

It was so funny I wasn't even angry that I lost the pot. The dude said 85o was his "lucky hand" so he always played it to the end. I read the situation right, was way ahead the whole time, and lost on the last card. Ahh, the joys of low limit poker.

The best one I witnessed was at my table at the 2005 Main Event. On the last hand before the first break two guys got it all in preflop with A-A and K-K. The Kings ended up making broadway, busting the Aces.
But everyone else form the table had already left for break so I was the only one that saw it. When they came back they all asked "Hey what happened to that guy?" :)

i was at a home game.....had AA pre-flop...raised with 2 callers....

flop came 349......bet all in with 2 callers....

one flopped a set of 3s....

other flopped a set of 4s...

:(