There are many people who describe playing pocket aces in many different ways. Although some of these reasons may be valid, most are completely ridiculous. Of course with poker the way you play the cards depends on the situation and the person you are playing against, but there still are some simple guidelines to follow in playing the rockets that will save your night. Most players believe that when they see aces they are 100% going to win the pot. This would be one of those myths. The chance of winning with aces is good when playing against one or two players, but once you add any players beyond that, your chance of winning is not so great.
Now to get on to some of the myths. A lot of people think that the way to play aces is to slow play them. This would be the biggest myth out there. Aces are a hand with a superior advantage heads up so you want to keep it that way. Since you see the hand so rarely, make sure that you are holding on to your edge. If you slow play your aces you are giving the people with the mediocre hand a chance to catch up and possibly take the pot off of you. A raise is almost always necessary pre-flop to make sure that you are only playing against premium hands which you know you have a serious advantage over. If you get lucky, your caller will have something like ace king or ace queen in which case you have them completely decimated. Even if they hold a pocket pair less than your aces you are still 80% to win. So make sure that you keep this edge because it will be your greatest ally.
The next thing that people worry about that they should not is that since they see the hand so rarely they want to make sure that they get paid off. Although it is nice to be paid off with the best hand, you should not take the chance of letting the worse hands catch up. With pocket aces you are likely to win a small pot or lose a big one. You have to make sure that the mystic of the aces does not blind you from playing your game. The reason that I say that most of the time you only win a small pot is because if your aces do not improve post flop and there are raises into the pot, chances are someone has your one pair beat. Still, most amateures are stubborn and are not willing to throw away aces and this attitude will result in a losing night. To be successful you have to overcome this feeling and learn to play the aces correctly.
Aces should be played one way and one way only: fast and hard. You have to make sure that you keep your edge and are willing to get away from the hand if the scenario calls from it. If you follow these guidelines you will be much more successful playing your pocket aces.
