AQo in the BB - multiple interesting decision points (5 Viewers)

[Zr1]

Then fold AQ pre.

But if you catch one of the best flops you can and don't play for value, then fold it, only play AA and KK in these spots.

If you want to be less predictable than that then you can't wait for positions of sure comfort to play.

Often times profitable poker is 11 steps forward and 10 steps back in any random order. However you never get the 11 steps forward if you are too afraid of one step back let alone 10.

People are so afraid to be wrong even once they cost themselves opportunities to make the right plays, which also hurts profit.

Who says we are not playing for value. I want him to bet the hand for us. I dont want him to fold when we have the best. Not sure who you guys play against but any good player on a flush draw who watch A player out of position C-bet is probably going to raise and put the pressure on. Super standard at mid to higher level games. Cause they kNow most of the time people miss the flop. Its always player dependent as well as u have to mix it up. Im not afraid or scared etc thats just stupidity to say that

 

[Moxie Mike]

Its not about limiting losses its about playing a big pot out of postion.

Sometimes this is unavoidable. Navigating large pots while OOP is never easy, but it's a necessary skill to develop if you want to be a winning NLHE player. Otherwise you need to avoid playing OOP in all but the most opportune times, and quite frankly that isn't reasonable.

Personally, I'm usually sort of relieved when I'm dealt junk in early position. But I'm not folding premiums if that's when they're dealt to me. Sometimes you just need to do the best you can with what you have to work with.

If we bet and he folds we get no value.

Dragging a pot uncontested is a better result than giving a free card to someone who can possible improve to a winning hand. Yeah, it's a bummer when that happens in a situation where you want action, but most of the time, winning a pot regardless of what I'm holding is always a good thing.

No flush draw is folding. Im not worried about protecting our hand as i agree with you we are usually way ahead of his range. We have good show down value and i want to get there with him building the pot.

We don't want the flush draws to fold. We want them to call when we lay them an unprofitable price. Will they get there sometimes? Of course. But this is about which plays have the highest EV in the long run.

Take the hand in question. Say hypothetically Villain folds to HERO's river value bet. He would have put in xx amount of dollars on the previous streets and gotten nothing in return EV-wise. HERO gets max value this way. Conversely, HERO makes a large mistake EV wise by failing to bet his hand. Not only does he earn less money in a pot he was destined to win, but he also laid infinite odds to his opponent by allowing them to draw for free. Both of those are an EV disaster.

HERO was the preflop aggressor in this hand. There's no reason to believe Villain will bet if checked to. Maybe if HERO checks the flop and the turn you could expect the Villain to bet, but this line relies on too many assumptions and has too much downside - the downside being the risk of giving free cards while the Villain also realizes his equity by checking back.

Sure - there's merit to the axiom that it's better to win a small pot than lose a big one. But failing to extract value is one of the worst mistakes a player can make. If you have a chance to stack someone but let them off easy that's far worse than losing when someone's draw got there in an otherwise properly played hand. This is because of the infrequency of such hands.

 

[Zr1]

Sometimes this is unavoidable. Navigating large pots while OOP is never easy, but it's a necessary skill to develop if you want to be a winning NLHE player. Otherwise you need to avoid playing OOP in all but the most opportune times, and quite frankly that isn't reasonable.

Personally, I'm usually sort of relieved when I'm dealt junk in early position. But I'm not folding premiums if that's when they're dealt to me. Sometimes you just need to do the best you can with what you have to work with.


Dragging a pot uncontested is a better result than giving a free card to someone who can possible improve to a winning hand. Yeah, it's a bummer when that happens in a situation where you want action, but most of the time, winning a pot regardless of what I'm holding is always a good thing.



We don't want the flush draws to fold. We want them to call when we lay them an unprofitable price. Will they get there sometimes? Of course. But this is about which plays have the highest EV in the long run.

Take the hand in question. Say hypothetically Villain folds to HERO's river value bet. He would have put in xx amount of dollars on the previous streets and gotten nothing in return EV-wise. HERO gets max value this way. Conversely, HERO makes a large mistake EV wise by failing to bet his hand. Not only does he earn less money in a pot he was destined to win, but he also laid infinite odds to his opponent by allowing them to draw for free. Both of those are an EV disaster.

HERO was the preflop aggressor in this hand. There's no reason to believe Villain will bet if checked to. Maybe if HERO checks the flop and the turn you could expect the Villain to bet, but this line relies on too many assumptions and has too much downside - the downside being the risk of giving free cards while the Villain also realizes his equity by checking back.

Sure - there's merit to the axiom that it's better to win a small pot than lose a big one. But failing to extract value is one of the worst mistakes a player can make. If you have a chance to stack someone but let them off easy that's far worse losing when someone's draw got there in an otherwise properly played hand. This is because of the infrequency of such hands.

Villain dependent. Obviously not doing this every situation. This just seems like one of those times i would have played it like i suggested. We can agree to disagree.

 

[CoachBudKilmer]

I’m one of the people that advocated for a fold. That said, I would not have personally played that hand the same way.

I believe that it is entirely possible given the bet sizes from the hero after the flop and after the turn, that the villain was calling with a weak queen or a middle pair. The only way to play top pair heads up out of position is to bet large enough to get weak kickers and second pairs out.

Why would I want to bet large enough so that weaker queens and 2nd pairs fold? Why would I make a bet that causes my opponent to play correctly?

 

[Taghkanic]

If I had to pick just one hand that this player type had, given the action, I’m going with … 22.

There are plenty of players at these stakes who simply cannot release pocket pairs. They do not calculate the odds of making a set. They do not think about all the over cards you might have paired, or the scary straighty/flushy board which developed on the flop and turn.

They just feel very attached to that initial feeling of peeking at their cards and seeing a pocket pair. They desperately want to make them into a straight.

That a goofy, inattentive, passive older guy waited until the river to reraise big to me screams not of amateur slow-playing, but rather of a guy who called down with the worst pair and only 2 outs, and finally got there.

 

[Windwalker]

Why would I want to bet large enough so that weaker queens and 2nd pairs fold? Why would I make a bet that causes my opponent to play correctly?

i think you misunderstood (or I didn’t explain well enough) . My point was that the bets were small enough that weak kickers would call, as might middle pair. At the stakes I play, I want calls from hands I can properly predict my opponent has. If I have AQo OOP, I want calls from JQ and KQ on a board of Q 10 x; not Q2. If you leave the potential hands your opponent can have as too broad OOP, you’ll end up being stuck with the kinda of catch / difficult decision OP had.

Again, all of this is subjective; I wasn’t there, and I don’t know what the “feel” was.

 

[Windwalker]

If I had to pick just one hand that this player type had, given the action, I’m going with … 22.

There are plenty of players at these stakes who simply cannot release pocket pairs. They do not calculate the odds of making a set. They do not think about all the over cards you might have paired, or the scary straighty/flushy board which developed on the flop and turn.

They just feel very attached to that initial feeling of peeking at their cards and seeing a pocket pair. They desperately want to make them into a straight.

That a goofy, inattentive, passive older guy waited until the river to reraise big to me screams not of amateur slow-playing, but rather of a guy who called down with the worst pair and only 2 outs, and finally got there.

I like that theory. But he could have also just been playing a Doyle Brunson hand