playing AA preflop

is it a bad idea to limp with AA when first to act preflop, hoping for a raise and reraise or just raise to begin with. And if you do raise should u raise a little hoping to get reraised or raise 3 or 4 X the BB

Slow playing AA is a good way to ruin (more often than I care to remember) the best starting hand you can get. The exceptions being when your up against a highly aggressive player (or 2) that you can count on for the raise. AA does not play well against many players.

When you get AA you want 2 things to happen, you want money in the pot, and you want to narrow the playing field.. down to 1 if you can help it. The best way to acheive that is usually to bet it up front for an amount big enough to scare away the trash, but hopefully not so big that someone with a good realy good 2nd best hand wont want to take a shot at you.

I think it depends on what type of game you're playing. In my NL house game 3-5 X's the big blind seems to work in scaring people off but at the same time keeping one or two around. Sometimes I'll make it ridiculous, like 7-8 X's the big blind to make it look like I'm trying to steal, and I'll get called by a person or two. This works because the guys I play with make it a habit to raise huge when they don't want a call, they make it too obvious that "hey, I don't have crap, I'm just trying to buy this pot."

But online its a different story. In MTT's I'd say to raise it 3-5 X's the big blind, just like a house game. In ring-games, though, I guess it depends on what blinds you're using. In .01/.02 games you sometimes find tables where a .10 or .20 bet will get called by six or seven people, and you can be screwed. In this case you've just gotta bet huge on the flop to scare everyone away, if somebody calls or raises you're eff'ed.

I've also seen it the other way, where I've raised to .10 and everyone folds, and I pick up a weak .03. Just depends on the table and your blind structure.

{moved from community by fishstick}

The number one rule in poker is never to slow play AA... only slow play hands when you have the nuts... slow playing AA is just asking for someone to out draw you... now if you hit a set, then yeah, slow play

I do this once every 2-3 weeks or so...

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Fnord is MP2 with A, A.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds, Fnord calls, MP3 calls, CO (BisonBison) raises, Button folds, SB folds, BB folds, Fnord 3-bets, MP3 folds, CO (BisonBison) calls.

Flop: (8.33 SB) T, 6, 7 (2 players)
Fnord bets, BisonBison calls.

Turn: (5.16 BB) 3 (2 players)
Fnord bets, BisonBison folds.

Final Pot: 6.16 BB

Results in white below:
No showdown. Fnord wins 6.16 BB.