Now here’s a good lesson on how NOT to play a big pocket pair when playing online poker. I was at the casino one day, playing various casino games. I realized that I enjoy playing at home more. I was playing Texas hold em in an online poker room recently, and was dealt A-2 of clubs in the big blind. There were two callers, and then the player on the button made a small raise, about twice the size of the pot. Well, normally I am not calling to call someone’s preflop raise with A-2, but I was already in the big blind and it was such a small raise I figured, why not? One of the two original callers also called the raise. The flop came and it was K-7-2, with two clubs. The guy who made the small preflop raise bet out, but again only a small bet. If it was bigger, I would’ve folded. As it was, for such a small price I had bottom pair and a flush draw and figured I’d see if I could get lucky.

Well, the turn came down another 2. This time I did in fact get lucky. Now, for some reason, the original raiser made a huge bet, for almost all his chips. I promptly reraised him all in. He ended up having AA and lost the hand, very angrily I will assume. Now, did I get lucky? Sure. I probably shouldn’t have won the hand. But the point is this person would never have been in that situation if they had simply made a big raise before the flop. I know a lot of people may like to make a small raise with AA because they want more people in the hand, but that’s wrong. You can lose with AA, and the more people in the pot, the better you’re chances of losing with it. It’s always better to win a small pot than lose a big one.