Playing in MTT on Party last night. I am in the BB. UTG immedietely goes all in. Folds around to me I happen to have been dealt AA so I call. Cards turn over he has a pair of 4's. Needless to say he hits a set of them and I am severely crippled. Before the Flop there was no possible hand that could beat me. I had to call that all-in.

The day you fold Aces before the flop is the last day you should ever play poker.

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and i found a new signature

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With all due respect, I strongly disagree. There is a very limited and specific time by which folding pocket aces is not only acceptable but oftentimes prudent.

Ready? Say you're in some sort of a no-limit tournament. The top, I dunno, let's say 40, get paid. You have a decent stack, but you're probably not going to win the whole thing. There are 41, maybe 42 players left, 3 of whom are on the ropes and will get sucked up by blinds and/or antes in relatively short order. A significantly larger (or moderately larger, there's fudging room here) chip stack goes all in on you. You have the edge in cards, yes...but do you really want to risk it? Do you really want to finish 41st because you made your move a hand or two too soon and busted out just outside the money? The guy who just went all in on you is just fine--even if he loses, he's still in the game.

The prudent course of action here (and one I myself have taken in this exact situation) is to let the hand go and chuck the pocket bullets, move on and forget about it. Your objective in that situation is to see to it that you get into the money first and foremost. Adding to your stack is a secondary consideration. I'll toss in an extra big blind level bet here or there on great hole cards just to see if I can't flop something, but never enough to where I put getting into the money line at risk. All you have to do is wait out the people in their dying gasps or wait for someone else to make a power play and lose, then you can get back to playing your game the way you normally would.

I guard my chips so heavily when the cutoff between leaving with nothing and leaving with a check gets close you'd think I had the damn things vaccuum sealed and locked away in a vault. Opponents can't get a damn thing out of me during that time frame.

Point is--there is a time and a place when chucking them is the smart, if painful, play.

Yes. I'm willing to finish 41st.

On a major bubble, yeah, the case can be made when 2 are already all in. Bottom of the bubble? Hell no. If that bottom means so much to you, you're playing underrolled. If your entry was gained by a sat, folding still minimizes your return and doubling up here 4 of 5 times (or 2 of 3 vs. 2 all ins) will take you at least to the next payout level in a large amount of cases making up for the 20% or 33% of the time you bust.

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Last time I checked you are supposed to go for first in a tournament. You cant do that by folding Aces preflop.

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FMP

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In a satellite you really gotta be careful with good hands.

I recently bubbled one where I had AK suited, I had almost safely won it being in the top 5 or so. I just limped (blinds were very high) and the CL limped behind me. He had pocket aces... The last ace came on the flop. I didn't go broke on the hand but lost enough chips to get me into trouble.

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A very, very limitd and specific time. This example is most likely not that time. It depends on chip stacks, blinds and payouts.

Check out this thread: Anyone folding AA here?? I am . . .

It has a very good discussion on whether folding AA pf is the right move in a very unique situation (real life WPT example). And be sure to read my Mobber Nominated post that shows a detailed analysis.

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