betting strategies

[Bruise Pristene]

hi I have found myself in NL preflop with AA, and am never sure what to do. I tried raising big but everyone folded and I only won the blinds! I then tried just calling, or betting small and loads of people stayed in an people got lucky on the river and have beat me whats the best way to play when you have that killer hand?

[guesswest]

Re: betting strategies I'd say it's all very dependant on position, and how much you know about your opponents, and what your own table image is. Also how valuable the blinds are - if you're in a tournament with huge blinds it might be a good result just winning them, and in any game it's a better result than losing. One popular way of playing aces in early position is the limp hoping for a raise. Whilst that play has value in tournament play I'm not a big fan of it in a cash game, or when the blinds are low in tournament play. In the first instance it runs the risk that nobody will raise behind you, and with the SB and BB in play a flop or rags could easily be dangerous - you have no idea where you stand. If it is raised behind you and you then reraise it, it's 100% obvious that you have aces or kings and any player with a brain is going to fold to your reraise. I'd say if you play early aces like that and the original raise sees you playing against 1 or 2 players only the call is a better play. I suppose my basic thought is this, aces are the best starting hand but they're still just that, a start - put in a reasonable but not transparently huge raise and hope for action, you might be defeating yourself trying to be too clever doing anything else - if you just pick up the blinds, at least you still won. And value raise hands like suited connectors/mid pairs etc so you do get action on your monster hands. My thoughts anyway :)