How to Get the Most Out of Your Big Pair in Poker

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We all know that good feeling you get when you peek through your poker hole cards and find you’re holding a big pair, like two Aces, or two Kings at Xgtiger Casino. Of course, there’s also nothing worse than watching your big pair blaze through a hand like the Jack-Nine of Spades. That’s why this article is dedicated to teaching you how to get the most out of your big pairs once they come to you.

Well, we can’t guarantee that you’ll win the pot every time you hold pocket Aces, Kings, or Queens. Well yeah, no joke! But what we can do is give you some guidelines that will improve the odds that your big pairs will actually stand up more often than not.

You Lead, Show Courage!

First, and most important: don’t be afraid to raise or reraise your big hands preflop.

Aces, kings, and queens are the strongest starting hands you can have in poker, and there’s no reason you should be afraid to play a big pot when you hold these hands. Especially when you can narrow the field down to just one or two opponents!

Remember, big pairs decrease in value as the number of players in a pot increases. This means, that spinning from an early position with a hand like Aces can be very, very dangerous. By sobbing the pot, you give everyone behind you a better chance of seeing the flop with a variety of hands that can beat you on subsequent streets.

Face Lady Luck

If no one raises behind you, you have to be very careful in playing your hand; unless you flop a set, or better!

Also, don’t be afraid to raise a hand like Kings or Queens poker, just because you’re afraid of running into Aces. If it happens, it happens! And that’s just part of the game. The truth is that big hands don’t come around very often. You should be looking to play them aggressively, by raising and re-raising before the flop. Once the flop is settled and you feel like you’re facing a better hand, don’t be afraid to fold your big pair, and then look for a better spot later in the tournament!

Feel Free To Fold If Things Go South

For example, if you hold Queens, and the flop comes down Ace, King, Four, plus your opponent bets you, you have a good fold there. You probably have a bad hand! We’d also say that if you have two black aces, and the flop comes down to the Eight, Nine, or Ten of Diamonds, you’d better look at minimizing your losses, or even folding if the action gets too intense. These are our dreaded flops that sometimes appear when you have pocket Aces or pocket Kings. And you just have to be smart and make your exit with a smaller loss.

Summary

In this online poker entry, we tried to explain that you don’t always have to go all-in pre-flop if you have top pairs. Even some major pro players like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are showing that it’s OK to do this, as their later games have shown. Note that the value of your top pair drops dramatically if the pot goes multiway; and that the deeper you go into the game, the more chances you have to deal with some strong hands capable of beating your pairs.

Conclusion

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Frequently asked questions

If multiple two pair hands go against each other, the hand with the better high pair wins. For example, A♠ A♦ 8♣ 8♦ 7♠ beats Q♦ Q♠ 9♥ 9♦ 7♠. The pair of aces in the first hand outranks the pair of queens in the latter hand. If multiple hands have the same high pair, the hand with the better low pair wins.
When comparing hands with two pairs, the hand with the highest pair wins, irrespective of the rank of the other cards – so J-J-2-2-4 beats 10-10-9-9-8 because the jacks beat the tens. If the higher pairs are equal, the lower pairs are compared, so that for example 8-8-6-6-3 beats 8-8-5-5-K.
 

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