Of course it depends at what stakes you are playing. If you play the micro or low limits at one of some low stakes poker sites, most players do not know how to play big pairs correctly. It is a different story at high stakes.

The thing is high pairs is, if the flop does not help, you have a pair. This pair could be higher than any card on the flop, but this does not necessarily make it the best hand.

When you have a monster pocket pairs in NL (QQ+), you should do everything you can to win the most money in the pot before the flop. You should raise from any position. If someone raises before you, you should almost reraise, except if your opponent is very aggressive.

You want to get as much money as possible into the pot before the flop because top pairs are almost certain to be the best hand pre flop. In some rare cases it can benefit you to slow play these pairs before the flop. For instance if you think you’re going to play the hand heads-up; if the table is very aggressive; or if aggressive players are sitting at your left.

Many players limp with pocket aces and this is a favorite move from early position by ten WSOP bracelets winner Johnny Chan. If someone raises, they you can reraise. If you see a player play that way, it is likely he has a big pair. If you slow play preflop, it is crucial to not feel committed if the flop is not favorable. If the flop comes and there is plenty of action there is a good chance that you do not have the best hand. If you are a king or a queen and an ace on the flop, do not waste any more of your chips.

On the river your game will depend on your position. If you are the first to play with a weak hand, but you still think it is the best hand, think about betting a third of the pot. If raised, you can throw your hand. If you are the last to play and your opponent checks, you should also check. Besides if you think you can call a worse hand, a pair is not usually strong enough to bet after the river is checked.

Playing big pairs in NL requires a lot of trial. As Doyle Brunson said: “With big pairs you win a small pot or lose a big one.” For if a player is willing to risk his entire stack in front of you, he probably has a hand that can beat your pair. Play them carefully, but aggressively to win more or lose less.

As far as Australian Poker League superstars go, Tony G is known the world over.

This legend of the game is loved and revered by many of Poker’s finest performers. Most folks wouldn’t give a moment’s attention to the name Antanas Guoga, but Tony G they certainly know well.

That’s because Tony was born in Lithuania and he moved to Melbourne, Australia when he was but a young pup at the tender age of 11.

A measure of his success can be gleamed from his superb performances in multiple high-stakes Poker tournaments in recent years. From the age of 18 Tony G has been racking, stacking, cracking and packing in the millions in Poker tournaments.

According to several estimates, Tony G has won over $2.1 million over the years. But that excludes promotional payments, commissions, commentating and other network deals he has negotiated.

Tony G is often a top contender and places well in big-name tournaments. Among his many career highlights are 1st place in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker Tournament (WPT). But Tony is always hovering about in the upper-echelons of Poker’s Grandmaster circles.

He was crowned the winner of the European Poker Championships (EPC) in 2005 where he played the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em main event. But it was the $450,000 payday he netted that made world headlines. He has won many tournaments since, including the World Poker Tour Bad Boys of Poker 2 event, the Betfair Asian Poker Tour and more.

There are certain rites of passage commonly associated with turning 21. A lot of them involve waking up hung over somewhere unfamiliar with more questions than brain cells. Born and bred Manhattanite Nick Schulman hasn’t necessarily been there, but that’s not the only reason his entrance into legal adulthood strays from the norm. As far as we can tell, very few 21-year-olds mark the occasion by going out and winning the World Poker Tour’s 2005 World Poker Final at Foxwoods. In fact, no 21-year-old has ever done anything like that, which is why the native New Yorker has become the youngest WPT champ in history.

“It’s not really what I planned for. I’m not complaining, it just seems so strange,” said Schulman, when he became $2.1 million richer with the victory. “I just like the game. You can’t force yourself to get good at poker. You can’t want to live the lifestyle and play without loving the game.”

While it might not necessarily have groomed him to become a World Poker Tour champion, the underground poker clubs and pool halls of New York definitely had a hand in shaping Schulman as a player and a person. Starting out in area pool halls at 15, young Schulman managed to make friends shooting stick with characters nicknamed “Snake” when most of his peers were playing tag at recess. “I just went for fun and fell in love with the game. By the time I was 15 or 16, I was really competing,” says Schulman. “For whatever reason, I’m just wired to gamble. With the transition to poker, I just never really had a choice.”.

By 18, Schulman and his friends had graduated to New York’s poker clubs. As clubs were closed down by the New York Police Department, his crew was constantly forced to find other venues for that next game. “Some of them were a little seedy, but for the most part they were just poker rooms,” says Schulman, who cut his teeth tapping the felt across from an interesting mix of New York rounders and degenerate gamblers. “I guess it’s a rougher crowd in the clubs. Management didn’t really take as good care of their players and the money wasn’t well protected. But for the most part most of the clubs I played at were cool.”

Nick grew up frequenting New York poker clubs with his friends, but things changed when he turned 21; Schulman was free to enter himself in tournaments and finally challenge the big boys on a considerably larger stage. He kept playing cash games, but always figured there was more money to be made in tournaments.

He had no idea where they would take him, especially after busting out early in his first tournament at the Borgata. A $2.1 million payday seemed pretty far away by the time he descended on Foxwoods two weeks before the World Poker Finals. Enjoying the action at the tables, he still wasn’t convinced that entering a tournament was the right move. The debacle at the Borgata certainly didn’t help to squash those fears. But a satellite tournament victory won him an entry in the $10,000 buy-in tournament. That’s where things got interesting.

“I was just looking to have fun with it. I was obviously going to try to play my best and things started going really well,” says Schulman. “After two days, I realized I might have a shot, so I started to take it seriously.”

After amassing a serious stack early on, Schulman only needed four hands to dispense of tournament runner-up Tony Lincastro. On the final hand, Schulman was dealt 6-9 of spades and turned a flush. With that, history was made.

Crowned the WPT’s youngest champion ever, Schulman returned to a hero’s welcome in New York. Local television and newspapers jumped on the story of the $2-million poker product barely old enough to drink. But Schulman knows that his place as the WPT’s youngest champ could be tenuous. At the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, a WPT event held in the Bahamas in January, the winner was 22-year-old Canadian Steve-Paul Ambrose, who beat a final table that included two 18-year-olds.

So after five years, Nick is still a poker pro and he has added a WSOP bracelet to his list of winnings. His total live tournaments winnings are about $3,800,000.