One way to do this, and I’ll talk about this later as well, because this strategy can work even against very good, thinking players(although not in the early levels), is to simply throw a bunch or even all of your chips in the pot preflop with your big hands (AA, KK). This is especially effective in a pot already raised from early position with one or more callers before you act. For example, EP(early position) fish raises 4x. This is more than his standard 3x raise, so we think he likes his hand. Could be AK or something like JJ . Then we get another caller. We look down at AA and we just push or make a big overbet. Very, very often, EP fish will not be able to fold here if our read is correct (AK, JJ ). He might even call with ANY pair or AQ! Believe me, it happens all the time. Part of the reason for this, and it’s not totally unfounded because you see this analysis all the time, is this mentality: Nobody is going to overbet a strong hand like we just did. If we have AA or KK, we wouldn’t play it so fast! You see this reasoning all the time, and it’s because most people won’t play AA or KK like this, which is exactly why we should, at least sometimes! Similarly, if we are in one of the blinds with a huge hand and we have a bunch of limpers or maybe a small raise and a bunch of callers, make a BIG overbet. Many times the fish, or even a good player, will interpret this as a steal attempt, and if they have any reasonable hand, they might call.

Getting Paid - Part I