Why you should flat AA more often

Most shallow flatting ranges should contain very strong hands in them, says Dara O'Kearney.

A common mistake I see players make is never flatting very strong hands. A player will open and they will always raise with JJ+ and AK. They instead only flat with hands like JTs and 77 - hands that play well post flop that we are not super happy getting it in with preflop. 

Every flatting range should contain some very strong hands. AA should be in there a lot and KK some of the time too. 

This is a 17BB response to a CO open in GTO Wizard:

As you can see AA is a pure flat. Hands like 77 and JTs are actually shoves in this range. In fact, most of the good suited broadway hands are shoves too. It's the weaker suited hands, balanced out by the AA and KK, in the flatting range. The flatting range is therefore a polar range, rather than a condensed range. 

Defence against squeezers

The problem with only flatting with medium-strength hands is that you cap your range, leaving you vulnerable to squeezes. 

When you flat AA, you are praying for the blinds to squeeze against you. If they squeeze, that's great for your hand. If they squeeze less because you flat AA, that's great for the rest of your range. 

The above range is a GTO range, but I suspect it is even more effective against wide openers and/or habitual squeezers. You will get paid off more pre and post flop, and might be able to add more hands like QQ and JJ into your flatting range to exploit this.  

You will find more flatting with AA and KK at shallower stack depths. This is because you have less need to build the pot with these strong hands. It's much easier to get the money in on the flop or turn with shallow stack depths and you will get paid off by more one pair type hands. 

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