Poker Strategy: Folding Aces Preflop
As any poker player knows, the best starting hand in Texas Holdem is pocket aces. Usually if you are dealt this hand you’re going to want to get as many of your chips in the pot as possible and while they won’t always be the best hand after all the cards are dealt, they still have a great advantage against almost every other hand. Knowing all of this, is there ever a time that you should fold pocket aces before the flop? Surprisingly the answer is yes!
This time comes when you are playing in a satellite tournament (a poker tournament with a small buy-in that will award a certain percentage of the field seats to a tournament with a larger buy-in). You have a decent sized stack and play has reached “the bubble” (where only one or a couple of players need to be eliminated before the rest of the players will all get seats). You get dealt pocket aces but three players in front of you have gone all in and two of them have more chips than you. Fold your aces immediately! The fact that you have the best starting hand means very little here. If you call and lose, you risk being knocked out and not receiving a seat and against multiple opponents aces are much weaker. All you have to do is fold them and when one or two of the other players are knocked out, you have earned your seat to the larger online poker tournament without the risk!
