Sometimes in poker, you hit lucky and find yourself with a monster pre-flop. However, if you play these hands incorrectly, you can actually find yourself in trouble. The biggest culprit for this is finding your big pocket pairs in early position.
Reason for over-raising your big pairs in early position
It is advised over-raising in early position on PKR with your big pairs, mainly to protect your hand. You do not want to let too many other players get involved in the hand. Aces or Kings are a big favorite against one other opponent, but the more players that see the flop – the less your odds are of winning the hand.
The reason you over raise your big pocket pairs is to stop players in later position calling because they are getting value to call. For example, you look down to see Aces under the gun. If you make your usual standard raise, say 3 times the big blind, and a player in mid position calls with an average pocket pair like nines – other players then have the opportunity to call with marginal hands. The button looks down to see A-10 so he also calls.
You now have three players involved in the hand and the big blind is getting value to call. Therefore, if he has any marginal hand, he too will call because of the value he is getting. You now have four players going to the flop, which is bad for a hand like pocket Kings. Now you are not over 50% to win the hand, and you are forced to call any bet on the flop unless an Ace comes. This can actually end up costing you a good chunk of your stack.
Protecting your big hand
Over raising in early position will make it harder for other players to call, thus making it more unlikely to run into more than one opponent on the flop. For example, say the blinds are 100-200, and you have K-K UTG. This time you raise five times the big blind to 1000. The likelihood is that the pocket 9s still call but the A-10 would be forced to fold and so would the big blind with the marginal hand that he was getting value to call with in the previous situation.
This time you end up with a similar amount of chips in the pot pre-flop, as well as only facing one opponent, which you are a massive favorite against. This is the ideal situation you want to be in, and the safest way to maximize your big hands when you get them in early position.