How do you play "Big Slick"?

Aquaman

Lifer
Dec 17, 1999
25,054
13
0
In early, medium & late position?

I find this hand hard to play. Also J J.

Cheers,
Aquaman
 

PAB

Banned
Dec 4, 2002
1,719
1
0
In the long run, pocket jacks are garbage.

Fold em early and save your money.
 

EngenZerO

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2001
5,099
2
0
early meidum - pot size
late - depends on my mood but more than pot size...

btw, i suck @ poker, ;)
 

Stunt

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2002
9,717
2
0
Originally posted by: Aquaman
In early, medium & late position?

I find this hand hard to play. Also J J.

Cheers,
Aquaman
Play JJ like TT; i find jacks quite weak...I'd limp in or slow play them to see what hits.
Good hand to do a last ditch all in. But again, it's not a good hand.

AK i like to slow play in mid position, but with just a few at the table you are likely ahead (pocket pr the exception)

Depends on the style of the other players; agressive table it's fun to play the odds and slow play like mad. At a weaker table, moderate raises.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
Everything depends on the situation (tournament or cash game, online vs offline, amount of the buyin, etc), the types of players that are at the table, and the kind of image you have at the table.

AK is nice, but by itself it means nothing. Slowplaying and hoping to hit on the flop is most often a bad strategy with AK (see Dan Harrington's Advanced Tournament Strategy). You should take the lead in the hand and put in a solid raise. That way you push out the riff-raff trying to limp in with a low pair. Then, when the flop hits and you don't think anyone got a major piece of it, you could push again and probably take the pot down.

Big slick is the hand that I see most people getting busted out of tournaments with. Why? Because they either play it too aggressive, in which case they either win only the blinds or they get called by a pair and lose, or they play it passive trying to trap and get nailed by a limper who happened to hit a set on the flop.

Early position, I put in a fairly big raise, 3-5 times the big blind. In middle or later positions, it depends on how many people are in the pot ahead of me. With lots of people in, I'd put in a big raise (5-6 times the big blind) but with not many in I'd just raise 2-3 times the big blind.

When playing online though, everything is different, since everyone seems willing to go all-in on the flimsiest of hands.......
 

DBL

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2001
2,637
0
0
Originally posted by: PAB
In the long run, pocket jacks are garbage.

Fold em early and save your money.

Seriously. I fold AA for the same reason.:disgust:

To the OP, there is no 100% correct answer. As with everything in poker, so much is dependent on type of game and position. However, in tourney NL for the most part, it's a pressure hand, meaning you should usually put a lot of pressure on your opponents with it. Force them to make a call for a significant amount, knowing that even if they do make the call, you are still a 50-50 shot to win and often much better.

If you are really trying to maximize the hand w/o a showdown, you could limp in EP hoping for a raise and then make a nice pot sized raise. This makes it likely that your opponent(s) will fold and still give you a nice shot to take down the pot even if you happen to be called. Also, this play disguises your AA, KK hands whenever you limp re-raise with them.


 

iamme

Lifer
Jul 21, 2001
21,059
3
0
i hate playing pocket jacks. i've wrongly layed them down against lesser hands and i've been burned by overplaying them.

they look nice because they're paint cards, but once an A, K, or Q is on the board, it feels like a waste of money. i just keep reminding myself that they're more like a pair of tens than a pair of queens.
 

iamme

Lifer
Jul 21, 2001
21,059
3
0
Originally posted by: DBL
Originally posted by: JS80
AK is most overrated hand ever.

Well, it's a top 5 hand in terms of EV. How can that be overrated?

my guess is that the people who say that are the ones who remember losing big time w/ the hand. same goes for pocket aces...."pocket aces suck!! i always lose w/ pocket aces!!". give me pocket aces anytime, man :)
 

mpitts

Lifer
Jun 9, 2000
14,732
1
76
My top ten hands based on net profit:

1. AA
2. AK offsuit
3. KK
4. QQ
5. JJ
6. TT
7. AK suited
8. AQ offsuit
9. 99
10. 77

AK and JJ a couple of my most profitable hands over 10K hands online. Throwing them away or slowplaying them (unless the situation absoutely warrants it) is like tossing money in the trash.
 

Nerva

Platinum Member
Jul 26, 2005
2,796
0
0
AK is my favorite hand to play and i dare say i play that hand the best, of all hands. easy to throw away and easy to make a lot of money. woot
 

mpitts

Lifer
Jun 9, 2000
14,732
1
76
Originally posted by: iamme
Originally posted by: DBL
Originally posted by: JS80
AK is most overrated hand ever.

Well, it's a top 5 hand in terms of EV. How can that be overrated?

my guess is that the people who say that are the ones who remember losing big time w/ the hand. same goes for pocket aces...."pocket aces suck!! i always lose w/ pocket aces!!". give me pocket aces anytime, man :)

Because people don't know how to play their hands properly and they invite all kinds of multi-way action because they think AA is unbeatable.
 

iamme

Lifer
Jul 21, 2001
21,059
3
0
Originally posted by: mpitts
My top ten hands based on net profit:

1. AA
2. AK offsuit
3. KK
4. QQ
5. JJ
6. TT
7. AK suited
8. AQ offsuit
9. 99
10. 77

AK and JJ a couple of my most profitable hands over 10K hands online. Throwing them away or slowplaying them (unless the situation absoutely warrants it) is like tossing money in the trash.

sounds like you have some kind of software tracker? what do you use?

also, it's interesting that AK unsuited is #2 on your list, while AK suited is #7. any ideas why that is? i remember reading somewhere that suited vs. unsuited wasn't as huge of a statistical advantage as some instinctively think (phil gordon's book, i think), but it's interesting that it's ranked that way on your list.
 

KnickNut3

Platinum Member
Oct 1, 2001
2,382
0
0
Originally posted by: iamme
Originally posted by: mpitts
My top ten hands based on net profit:

1. AA
2. AK offsuit
3. KK
4. QQ
5. JJ
6. TT
7. AK suited
8. AQ offsuit
9. 99
10. 77

AK and JJ a couple of my most profitable hands over 10K hands online. Throwing them away or slowplaying them (unless the situation absoutely warrants it) is like tossing money in the trash.

sounds like you have some kind of software tracker? what do you use?

also, it's interesting that AK unsuited is #2 on your list, while AK suited is #7. any ideas why that is? i remember reading somewhere that suited vs. unsuited wasn't as huge of a statistical advantage as some instinctively think (phil gordon's book, i think), but it's interesting that it's ranked that way on your list.

Sounds like you also have a small sample size. That's gotta be <20k hands.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
136
AK is a hand that easily lulls people into overconfidence. It's not actually a winning hand until you pair it, until then it's just a relatively wimpy high card A with K kicker. Hence the nickname. The biggest mistake people make with Big Slick IMO is to slow-play it as though they had a wired pair of overcards. The best thing about AK in the hole is that you have a 1-in-3 chance of pairing on the flop, and you can pretty easily tell at the flop whether you hit the best hand or not. So raise pre-flop regardless of position and then reassess after the flop whether to stay in or not. If you decide to stay in post-flop, raise don't call, unless you hit big on the flop and decide to slow-play/trap.
 

RaynorWolfcastle

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2001
8,968
16
81
Originally posted by: iamme
Originally posted by: mpitts
My top ten hands based on net profit:

1. AA
2. AK offsuit
3. KK
4. QQ
5. JJ
6. TT
7. AK suited
8. AQ offsuit
9. 99
10. 77

AK and JJ a couple of my most profitable hands over 10K hands online. Throwing them away or slowplaying them (unless the situation absoutely warrants it) is like tossing money in the trash.

sounds like you have some kind of software tracker? what do you use?

also, it's interesting that AK unsuited is #2 on your list, while AK suited is #7. any ideas why that is? i remember reading somewhere that suited vs. unsuited wasn't as huge of a statistical advantage as some instinctively think (phil gordon's book, i think), but it's interesting that it's ranked that way on your list.

It's just because he's basing it on net profit, you'll see AKo much more often than AKs thus you'll make more money on AK in all, but you're EV/hand is higher with AKs for obvious reason.

To give you an idea, after 10k hands my top hands are as follows:

Hand | Times dealt | Win% | BB/Hand
========================
AA....|........40.......|...80....|...2.40
KK....|........45.......|...71....|...2.21
AKo..|........94.......|...64....|...1.13
AQo..|........92.......|...62....|...1.67
ATo..|........107......|...55....|...1.30
77....|........47.......|...55....|...1.35
AJo...|........99.......|...60....|...0.70
QQ...|........50.......|...70....|...1.09
JJ.....|........71.......|...54....|...0.78
55....|........35.......|...46....|...1.03


Now, keep in mind that I play 6-max limit rather than full-ring NL games so variance is pretty high in comparison and 10k isn't that many hands. I also definitely have some rather glaring leaks to plug in my game. Anyhow, it's interesting to see how well the small pairs do in 6-max play, they're usually flop or fold and relatively easy to play; notice that I'm actually more profitable with 77 than QQ or JJ. In this case it probably means I'm hanging on to QQ and JJ too long and I've probably won a couple of huge pots with 77 and 55.

Anyhow, regarding the OP's post, check out Sklansky's books for an idea of how to play these cards, you'll still want to mix it up though.

 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
I agree with Vic's analysis. Big slick is one of those hands that can cause trouble for those who don't play it right, just like AA causes trouble for those who want to get too fancy for their britches and try to be tricky/trappy. If you let more than 1 or 2 people stay in the hand to see the flop, your AA is likely not going to win it.

For your AK to make you money, it needs to be paired (if that happens its relatively easy to make money), or the flop texture has to be such that you can make a push based on the idea that nobody hit the flop and you still have a decent chance of pulling it out if you do get called.

Edit: Incidentally, I believe the difference in winning likelyhood for AK suited versus AK offsuit is about 2%. In fact, suited cards in general are about 2% more likely to win than non-suited ones. People attach way to much value to suited vs unsuited. Of course, if they are suited you have the chance for a flush, which can land you big money, but you also get in trouble fishing for a flush.
 

DingDingDao

Diamond Member
Jun 9, 2004
3,044
0
71
Ahh, Anna Kournikova...looks great, loses often :p

Just kidding. In some ways I prefer AK over AA or KK because you can do more with it, and it's easier to get off the hand with AK than it is with AA or KK. Obviously, AK is not a made hand, though, so it's important (to me at least) to make it heads-up or 3-way.

Preflop: With AK I almost always make a raise preflop--at least 4 or 5 times the BB to push out the trash. If I'm in early position, I might check-raise if I'm fairly certain that someone behind me will raise (loose tables). In late position, I always raise, unless there was a raise in front of me, at which point a reraise is a judgment call--is the raiser loose or tight? How large was the raise? How many players are behind me, and do I think they'll call? All of these things have to be considered, but if I think a reraise will push out more players, I'll do it. If I think I'm going to be called no matter what (loose players behind, or players that like to defend their blinds), I'll smooth-call.

After the flop:
If I hit, I'm going to bet at it. Period. I'll also raise any bets if I think it'll push people off their hands. I've gotten burned too many times to slow-play AK with an A or K on the board to wait around. Besides, after my pre-flop raise, the pot's big enough for me to take it down right then and there.

If I miss the flop, then it gets interesting. A lot of factors come into play at this point:
1) It's still early enough in the hand to get away without losing too much money. If someone makes a bet at it and it's raised in front me, I'm gone.
2) What's the texture of the flop? All rags? I'd bet at it. Paint? It might be better to save your money for another hand (if someone bets in front)
3) Draws: If the flop leaves me 4-flushed or drawing to a straight (4-outer), it boils down to pot odds. If you don't know how to calculate pot odds, ask me about it. If everyone checks in front of me, I might semi-bluff at it, but a free card is a free card. Semi-bluffing depends on your opponent--if you think they can be pushed off the hand, take a stab at it. If your opponent(s) is a calling station, I'll just check it down to a free fourth street card.
4) Position is key--if everyone checks around and I'm in late position, I'm going to use that advantage and bet much more often than if I'm in early position.
5) When in doubt, I always think about some advice that I've read in pretty much every poker book I've read (Brunson, Harrington, Cloutier, etc): Raise or Fold. Callers are losers in the long run.

Fourth Street:
At this point you're pretty much committed to the pot, especially if there was betting post-flop (which makes the pot pretty big at this point). I pretty much use the same factors as I do post-flop to determine my moves, except that I'm less likely to fold the hand, unless the bet in front of me is very, very large, and I don't have very many outs.

River:
See fourth street.

Obviously, this is just one opinion--if you think I'm wrong, let's discuss it (I'm always looking for ways to improve my game). I regularly play NL tables in Vegas (mostly the Wynn, sometimes at MGM or Palms) and here in L.A. (Commerce and the Bike) and I'm almost always up at least 3-5x my buy-in when I cash out. My game is tight and aggressive--no Gus Hansen-style for me. A lot of my play has been shaped by the books I've read, and I take very little from the crap they show on TV.

EDIT: Keep in mind that my playing style is based on live games, not internet play. I've logged way more hours playing in cardrooms than I have playing on the computer.