A Free Online Poker Guide To Playing AA And KK Preflop

Regardless of whether you play entry level online with free streaming poker or high stakes Vegas A-A and K-K will be the top two hands preflop that will get your heart thumping with excitement every (rare) time they are.

When you've got AA or KK the prospect of an inferior pair winning pre-river are merely about 20% with unpaired hands being even lower. With K-K, an A-X (Ace with any card) features a 25% to 30% chance of winning, and this is generally provided that they hit the Ace.

When you have AA or KK you hear that voice saying "raise, raise, raise!" Yes, raise heavily it notifys you, in fact the one hands happy to call us will probably be ones like AK and AQ, and also a heavy raise will scare off the suited connectors that might be able to crack us later when they hit straights or flushes.

So everything you do is raise, especially coming from a late position, and reraise any raises. Then your hope, if you reraise, is your opponents are intending to reraise again using a weaker hand that they can think will be the favorite, for example A-K or A-Q, which means you can set them all-in, or move all-in yourself.

But periodically it's good to get more subtle than doing the raise and reraise thing. An example are these claims: Suppose you might have A-A during the early position, so you raise. All the rest fold. How many times are you frustrated once you raise or move all-in with those big pairs preflop only to bait no customers?

So during the early position, in the event that's that which you plan to do - if you want to catch them spilling lots of their chips into your stack preflop, then just call, then wish - wish! - that somebody raises once you in order to reraise. If they fold, at the very least you have obtained more chips than in the event you raised immediately and you scared them off. If they call, that's beyond preflop play already...

But this "beyond preflop play" is very significant, in this you will find there's massive difference between A-A and K-K. Usually you need to be ready to move all-in preflop more regularly with K-K than A-A. Why?

Because if you've got A-A along with the flop comes, say, Q-7-3 or K-9-5, those happy to square with you might be individuals with, like, A-Q, K-Q or K-J.

They are ready to feed their chips for you using these hands, and also you can call their big bets or all-ins.

Your A-A continues to be best hand, as they definitely think their large (big and not large enough) pair is strong, and that hand's already a tremendous underdog. A-A is good for trapping and then for speeding.

You can move all-in from it preflop, obviously, but as above you are able to trap by it in case you feel like it.

But if you might have K-K, the flop might fall A-7-2, K-K, it doesn't matter how golden, is now drawing almost dead. There are two Kings left, and anyone who could possibly be there along with you may bet large while he posseses an Ace. (Is he more likely to bet with a single Seven?)

So you have to fold your K-K, regardless how hard it really is that will get so competent a hand after which banish it seconds later. Or just call, call, call.

So, preflop, you might want to play K-K more strongly than you'd play your A-A. Ideally, in the event you move all-in with K-K, an A-X will phone you, or a small pocket pair so you'll be an approximately 75-25 favorite. (You're not likely to be called with K-X or Q-X because they're not sufficiently strong for calling all-ins.)

If you obtain called with A-X, they still have to catch the Ace. They're the ones taking the risk, rather than you. If you play K-K slowly, plus they ride their A-X along with you about the Flop, plus they caught the Ace, it is a thousandfold different from needing to catch it. They have no risks to adopt.

There could be times its keep is A-A versus K-K, but these times are rare. And should you're normally the one while using K-K, you may even fold it.

Say two of you in a very preflop hand will be the chip leaders in the tournament, and you also reraise his early-position raise, then out of the blue he pushes you all-in! You might put him on A-A, bandarq and you fold, very, very smartly and sickly. Or he's a player which team you know who'll not raise that LARGE a sum unless he has A-A. But these times are rare, remember.

So, excepting some kind of special considerations that really must be remembered using the K-K, playing A-A and K-K preflop is merely almost identical.