PAHWM AA in position against aggressive opponent (2 Viewers)

[grandmeme]

I really don't know what to do here, because this is a situation I would not find myself in.

I agree. I would not know what to do here, because all my chips would already be in the pot on the flop or turn. I still think that folding here is outrageous.

Just jam! This just reeks of a player who is afraid to get it in with the best hand most of the time because they are scared of monsters under the bed.

 

[WedgeRock]

If I'm reading this right, there is ~140 in the pot and you bet out 25, not even 1/6 of the pot. What is the purpose of that bet?

I'm asking myself the same thing.

$15 into a pot of $60 on the flop?
$25 into a pot of $140 on the turn?

These are bets I make when my AA improves and I went to induce him to check raise me. Unimproved? I'm betting larger. Like 60-75% of pot.

You induced check raises without improving. From his perspective, he should be cautious of the small bets... But instead he is forging ahead. Feels strong.

 

[grebe]

As played, it's time to lay down AA here.

Not even a lttle. In no realm of possibility am I folding aces head's up to a 1/4 pot raise. If you even lose 2/3 of the time, with the sizing that's going around, you still profit making this call. AND, against a LAG, you are not losing near that much.

Yes, sometimes you are going to get unlucky. But in the long run, if you are laying down hands to bets like this, you will be a losing player.

Let's just say we KNEW his hand is KJo. He has top two pair. We also know he will not fold this strong of a hand on the river for the remaining $90...

-We have 8 outs to improve to beat him: three 9's, three 7's and two Aces. That gives us 16% equity...about 5 to 1.
-We have to call $35 to win about $310....the pot plus the additional 90 he will put in if we hit our outs. We can fold the river if we miss, since in this example, we know we are beat and we know he will call if we jam. We are getting 11 to 1 odds. Slam dunk call.

I hope my math is right. I am not great at this, but I know this is one is not close. It's a call.

Also, in real life, we are WAY better than this. We do not fold here.

 

[JustinInMN]

Turn:
Villain checks to me
I bet $25
Villain raises to $60
Action?

Pot $226.50

Haven't seen the result, but I don't think I am ever folding this getting over 6-1 on my money going to the river. But I don't really like a shove here either because I think it's hard to get paid by anything inferior except maybe AK or KQ here. The argument to shove is to deny equity to the pair+gutshot hands. hero underbet this turn to make it correct for those hands to continue.

This does feel like kings-up a lot, and probably still a healthy hunk of pair+gutshot hands. But the price is too good to fold, I see merit in either the flat or the shove, but I would have bet out a much bigger sizing in the first place.

 

[Jimulacrum]

But I don't really like a shove here either because I think it's hard to get paid by anything inferior except maybe AK or KQ here.

The pot is way too big for this to be an overriding concern.

Villain almost can't fold to a shove, if he has anything worth talking about, whether or not it beats AA. Hero has laid generous odds throughout the hand, and now he'll be laying Villain over 3 : 1 even if if shoves.

The only mistakes now are calling (giving Villain a cheap shot to catch something if he's behind) and folding (because that's madness).

This does feel like kings-up a lot, and probably still a healthy hunk of pair+gutshot hands.

And possibly hands like QQ and a whole slew of miscellaneous hands, because the betting has invited Villain to stick around and practically begged him to bluff. The way the action has gone, we can barely narrow his hand down at all. This is the kind of hand where, as played, you have to play it on the math because hand-reading here is just too muddy.

… but I would have bet out a much bigger sizing in the first place.

Yup. On every round.

 

[DirtyTIVA]

Not even a lttle. In no realm of possibility am I folding aces head's up to a 1/4 pot raise. If you even lose 2/3 of the time, with the sizing that's going around, you still profit making this call. AND, against a LAG, you are not losing near that much.

Yes, sometimes you are going to get unlucky. But in the long run, if you are laying down hands to bets like this, you will be a losing player.

Let's just say we KNEW his hand is KJo. He has top two pair. We also know he will not fold this strong of a hand on the river for the remaining $90...

-We have 8 outs to improve to beat him: three 9's, three 7's and two Aces. That gives us 16% equity...about 5 to 1.
-We have to call $35 to win about $310....the pot plus the additional 90 he will put in if we hit our outs. We can fold the river if we miss, since in this example, we know we are beat and we know he will call if we jam. We are getting 11 to 1 odds. Slam dunk call.

I hope my math is right. I am not great at this, but I know this is one is not close. It's a call.

Also, in real life, we are WAY better than this. We do not fold here.

In a vacuum of course I wouldn’t fold to such a small raise on that board. My money would have been all in on the flop. When checked to I would have bet 3/5-2/3 pot every time.

But as played Hero’s small bets feel like they’re probing and twice now Villain has responded with a massage raise. Which is about as concerning to me as having 2 red aces on a monochrome black 4 card straight board.

There’s also a saying to be wary when a LAG starts betting more conservatively or starts playing cute. They have a monster and are trying to get max value.

 

[JustinInMN]

And possibly hands like QQ and a whole slew of miscellaneous hands, because the betting has invited Villain to stick around and practically begged him to bluff. The way the action has gone, we can barely narrow his hand down at all. This is the kind of hand where, as played, you have to play it on the math because hand-reading here is just too muddy.

I agree with most of the analysis here, and yes, I think I did overlook that the shove would be such a small size Villain will have to call with just about anything. Even Qj, JT, and J8. Especially pointing out there are 3 single-gaps in the board right now, so villain pretty much has to have at least a pair+gutshot, two-pair, or a straight for value, and there really is very little for villain to have that's a pure bluff, especially for as little as the raise is.

I suppose QQ and AK could be out there as played. That would be among hero's best case scenarios if he shoves. KQ makes a lot of sense as played too. Check-raise as a semi bluff with two overs and a gutshot on a flop where villian would almost never have hero on two-pair-plus except maybe JJ. Then he improves to a pair and goes for another check-raise? AA even make some sense for Villian as well, electing to flat pre and go for the fancy play later in the hand?

And I did land on the conclusion I think the shove (even though there are reasons not to like it) and the flat are both reasonable. Folding is madness.

 

[grebe]

Folding is madness.

 

[WedgeRock]

Is this not resolved yet?!

 

[JMC9389]

Is this not resolved yet?!

OP is still tanking

 

[bergs]

I think that after realizing how he played AA, he moved to a small Carribbean island that lacks poker, internet access, and an extradition treaty with the United States.

 

[bergs]

If you snarl “Nice Catch!” in a forest, is there anyone there to ship it?

 

[KHarp1]

I'm calling clock

 

[Burke]

It’s hard to respond sometimes. Honestly though the decision points were already made so the results really shouldn’t matter.

@Everyone not sure why I played this so oddly with small bet-sizing. In terms of pre-flop I didn’t think my raise was inappropriate. On flop I would usually bet 33% and I don’t have a great reason for going smaller. I was confused by his turn check and took it as a sign of weakness from the villain. I didn’t think enough about my bet-sizing. I also thought the turn check-raise was really odd.

I’ll put a spoiler on the results on the bottom of this post to not delay anything in the future.

I called
River was a Jd
Villain shoves

 

[Jimulacrum]

It’s hard to respond sometimes. Honestly though the decision points were already made so the results really shouldn’t matter.

@Everyone not sure why I played this so oddly with small bet-sizing. In terms of pre-flop I didn’t think my raise was inappropriate. On flop I would usually bet 33% and I don’t have a great reason for going smaller. I was confused by his turn check and took it as a sign of weakness from the villain. I didn’t think enough about my bet-sizing. I also thought the turn check-raise was really odd.

I’ll put a spoiler on the results on the bottom of this post to not delay anything in the future.

I called
River was a Jd
Villain shoves

Weird. Your spoiler doesn't show up at all in the main post. Only shows up in the quote if I go to reply. I think you need to give it a name (SPOILER = "name") so it doesn't just show up as blank. (I deleted it in my quote so I don't expose it.)

I can understand why you'd fold here. There's so much that he could have had at either the flop or the turn that has either beat AA in the first place or has improved to beat AA. So few hands don't fit this description.

I think the best way you can reflect on this hand is to think about it knowing your opponent's cards. Would you have played this the same if you could see his cards? If not, how would you have played differently? Why? How can you incorporate this observation into your future play?

 

[Gear]

Spoiler

I folded. Villain said he had QJ and showed me the J of clubs. Fold also doesn’t make sense for the odds offered probably, but I couldn’t think of a lot of hands that I had beat at that point

 

[Coyote]

Once upon a time I played in an underground game, where I stacked twice an obvious criminal.
After that, I get AA, bet just 3BB for camouflage and he calls (he 's in position).
Flop comes 5-8-9 rainbow. I bet 2/3 pot and he raises all-in.
I folded, but wouldn't have done so if villain wasn't seemingly just out of prison.

 

[bergs]

Once upon a time I played in an underground game, where I stacked twice an obvious criminal.
After that, I get AA, bet just 3BB for camouflage and he calls (he 's in position).
Flop comes 5-8-9 rainbow. I bet 2/3 pot and he raises all-in.
I folded, but wouldn't have done so if villain wasn't seemingly just out of prison.

I had the exact same thing happen to me at Foxwoods except the guy had jumped bail and put some kind of bail bond certificate on top of the pot after he jammed.

I folded too.

 

[warma]

Interesting. So that pause might have been them wondering if they should continue with Jacks, because no one should ever count on Jacks.

I think if you had played more aggressively, V would have folded prior to the river,

 

[WedgeRock]

On flop I would usually bet 33%

So you routinely give your opponents 4:1 odds to draw to a hand that beats yours?

 

[grebe]

So you routinely give your opponents 4:1 odds to draw to a hand that beats yours?

If you bet this every time with your entire range (on a head's up flop that you raised pre), you would not be far off of what a solver would do. If you bet big when you have it and small or check when you don't, you would be very easy to play against. Of course, flop texture matters, but having a small c bet as your standard play in this spot is not necessarily that big of a leak.

 

[bergs]

If you bet this every time with your entire range (on a head's up flop that you raised pre), you would not be far off of what a solver would do. If you bet big when you have it and small or check when you don't, you would be very easy to play against. Of course, flop texture matters, but having a small c bet as your standard play in this spot is not necessarily that big of a leak.

Doesn’t this assume he has history with all applicable villains, which isn’t really applicable for a casino session.

 

[WedgeRock]

If you bet this every time with your entire range (on a head's up flop that you raised pre), you would not be far off of what a solver would do. If you bet big when you have it and small or check when you don't, you would be very easy to play against. Of course, flop texture matters, but having a small c bet as your standard play in this spot is not necessarily that big of a leak.

Agree, mostly.

Against this opponent, though, I'm not giving him odds to draw.

 

[Jimulacrum]

If you bet this every time with your entire range (on a head's up flop that you raised pre), you would not be far off of what a solver would do. If you bet big when you have it and small or check when you don't, you would be very easy to play against. Of course, flop texture matters, but having a small c bet as your standard play in this spot is not necessarily that big of a leak.

Not a big deal until it sets up OP to confuse himself about his opponent's hand value, build a huge pot, and then have to abandon it on the end, after allowing his opponent to draw cheaply with a hand he should have gotten all-in on the flop.

"Solvers" are the worst thing to happen to poker since HUDs.

 

[grebe]

Doesn’t this assume he has history with all applicable villains, which isn’t really applicable for a casino session.

Actually, the opposite. You would want to play GTO style, or non-exploitatively against other players that are also trying to play GTO or players you don't know much about. Once you discover how a person would react to your <insert applicable action here>, you can start to exploit this mistake until they show signs of adjusting. For instance, if you know they will call your c bet every time, you can size up your bet when you have it, and check back when you don't.

Agree, mostly.

Against this opponent, though, I'm not giving him odds to draw.

Fair, and neither would I. If you go back and read my posts, you would see against this opponent, I would be piling money into this pot. I have history against this guy (pretty sure I know who it is), and I would play exploitatively here as well. Not afraid of his draw, but because I know his range is wide and he is capable of making big calls. That wasn't the statement you made, though and not the response I wrote.

Not a big deal until it sets up OP to confuse himself about his opponent's hand value, build a huge pot, and then have to abandon it on the end, after allowing his opponent to draw cheaply with a hand he should have gotten all-in on the flop.

This is making lots of assumptions. We can go in the weeds about preflop and post flop tendencies based on what the correct GTO play would be in this situation, but we would have to start checking ranges on both opponents and what not. This situation, as I have stated from the start is not GTO. It's exploitative, because we know how the villain plays. HOWEVER...in a raised pot with position and the flop is checked to us, a 1/3 pot bet across many hands and flops will tend to be a pretty solid base. We will win some, we will lose some. Sometimes, we will be drawing too. Long term, it's a good starting point.

"Solvers" are the worst thing to happen to poker since HUDs.

Mmmkay. But the information is out there. It would be unwise to not use it.

 

[bergs]

Mmmkay. But the information is out there. It would be unwise to not use it.

There are alot of reasons that NLHE sucks (like Rhodeman getting dealt AA) but this solver GTO bullshit is reason #1.

 

[JustinInMN]

I called
River was a Jd
Villain shoves

No spoiler appeared in this post.

What sucks here is there is now $361 in the pot and it's $90 to call, and while this is a bad river against Jx, we still beat Kx, QQ, and so forth. So I do think that's enough to justify the call, even if it's an 80% loser.

Honestly though the decision points were already made so the results really shouldn’t matter.

I appreciate the sentiment that the results SHOULDN'T matter to the discussion about what hero SHOULD do. However, playing hands back from the villain's perspective is a super-important exercise as well to get insight as to whether our perceptions of villain represent reality. The result (or at least villain's holding) surely does matter in this context and I think it's important to have this exercise as well as part of a strategy thread.

 

[Burke]

No spoiler appeared in this post.

What sucks here is there is now $361 in the pot and it's $90 to call, and while this is a bad river against Jx, we still beat Kx, QQ, and so forth. So I do think that's enough to justify the call, even if it's an 80% loser.



I appreciate the sentiment that the results SHOULDN'T matter to the discussion about what hero SHOULD do. However, playing hands back from the villain's perspective is a super-important exercise as well to get insight as to whether our perceptions of villain represent reality. The result (or at least villain's holding) surely does matter in this context and I think it's important to have this exercise as well as part of a strategy thread.

See posts above regarding spoiler. Villain had QJ.

 

[Seeking Alpha Social Club]

See posts above regarding spoiler. Villain had QJ.

Was the villian John D? If so, there's probably nothing you could do to make this turn out different once he flopped top pair. Same would have been true for Gunny.

 

[Burke]

Yes..it was. Yeah he told me he was not planning on folding after the $30 raise preflop and hitting top pair regardless of turn and river