AA from early position...how many streets? (1 Viewer)

[grebe]

Playing live 1/2 at local card room. Table is mostly young and more aggressive than normal, but still not much 3 betting going on. Main villain (V1) is actually a college student, is on a massive heater, wearing headphones, and being staked. I know this because his braggy buddy just came in and told the table....another guy to my left is also being staked. He is betting pretty aggressively, but is making straights and flushes every third hand. V2 is a total fish and is short stacked, so I am not too concerned with him.

Preflop is pretty easy and I don't think much to talk about, but if you would like to comment here please do:
V1 ($800) straddles to $5
Fold to Hero ($360) in UTG+1 with , raise to $20
V2 ($60) in CO calls, V1 calls.
Pot is $60

Flop:

V1: check
Hero: ???

(edited to add stack sizes)

 

[kirchhausen]

Id make a nearly pot size bet. Let's go with $50.

 

[Ben8257]

Well V2 already put in $20... he is probably along for the ride now with his $40, man wish that 4 was a club, but now we have the straight and flush draws, we have all seen this one play out badly too many times! Pot sized bet here, V2 again is likely coming but hopefully V1 gets out of the way, rather win a little with Aces then loose a lot when the get cracked on this wet board!

 

[Legend5555]

I feel like I've been away from the strategy forums for too long. Poker has just taken a real backseat to family and other hobbies lately. But I'll chime in here for the first time in a while.

V2 only has $40 behind. You only have $340. You basically can't bet anything between $21 and $39 as it causes a huge problem in betting action if V2 shoves. So, do we bet tiny or just bet $40+?

I say we just bet like $45 on this draw heavy board and likely never fold to a raise from V1. There are so many draws V1 can have that might raise here that you can't fold to a single raise and the stack sizes are such that any raise from V1 basically commits you to the hand. And you don't want to just call that and not make him pay full price for the runout.

If you were significantly deeper, then you can just call a raise and evaluate. But you are short enough that you don't really have much to think about here.

 

[detroitdad]

I'm placing two x $25.00's chips out as my bet.

 

[boltonguy]

I don’t think you are likely to have any FE on this board with all the sets and draws out there, so a bet isn’t going to get better hands to fold and you won’t be denying equity. I’d assume you’re getting two callers no matter how big you bet. I don’t think you’re getting three streets here so am checking flop. The runout is going to be what the runout is going to be and with no FE it’s not looking good fit hero. My guess is that you are reduced to deciding to bluff catch turn and river.

 

[detroitdad]

I don’t think you are likely to have any FE on this board with all the sets and draws out there, so a bet isn’t going to get better hands to fold and you won’t be denying equity. I’d assume you’re getting two callers no matter how big you bet. I don’t think you’re getting three streets here so am checking flop. The runout is going to be what the runout is going to be and with no FE it’s not looking good fit hero. My guess is that you are reduced to deciding to bluff catch turn and river.

That makes sense. I'm a self admitted horrible NLHE player if anyone didn't already know this lol

 

[kirchhausen]

Obviously you aren't getting better hands to fold. You certainly can probably get some worse hands to call. 10j suited, flush draws with no straight like Axss, JJ, maybe even 88 or 77 if V is sticky and is a non-believer. I don't think in live 1/2 you check in this spot.

 

[kirchhausen]

please delete or ignore my duplicate message

 

[boltonguy]

Well I can’t claim to be any good myself but I’m trying! AA here is a decidedly middle strength hand and the callers have the nut advantage with all sets IMHO. If we plan to bet I think signs point to betting small here. I would rather be in a position to X/C vs facing a raise after making a large bet here.

 

[boltonguy]

I agree that worse hands will call but I’m not interested in building a pot with such a dynamic board and a one pair hand. Many of those worse hands have a lot of equity and if I have no FE don’t think a bet makes sense.

I only play online though so factor that in.

 

[kirchhausen]

Sure we could be up against a set, (and given this thread is sometimes bad/beat disguised as strategy the hand could definitely skew that way), but there are far more hands V could have than a couple of sets. I think AA is one of the hands we just have to go to war with, especially as we aren't particularly deep.

 

[boltonguy]

Maybe I would agree heads up but multi way is a different story for me. Going to war multi way is dangerous on a dynamic board

 

[kirchhausen]

Maybe I would agree heads up but multi way is a different story for me. Going to war multi way is dangerous on a dynamic board

Maybe if we were multiway with 2 players that both had 300+ chips, but v2 is shorty with less than a pot size bet left. We can pretty much discount him at this point, and play like we are heads up against V1.

 

[Legend5555]

Maybe I would agree heads up but multi way is a different story for me. Going to war multi way is dangerous on a dynamic board

It's not really multi way though given r short stack of V2. And while in an online world betting here too often can be dangerous, in live play people have much wider ranges and call with any piece much too often. Bart talks about this a lot on his podcast that you can bet spots like this more often than theory would dictate, especially short stacked like our hero is because people will over commit and play too wide.

 

[Lil Tuna]

Somebody is playing cards at “Pop’s Poker” it sounds like.
Pot size bet with AAs.

 

[feltschmerz]

If you were significantly deeper, then you can just call a raise and evaluate. But you are short enough that you don't really have much to think about here.

He's got 150BB after the preflop action. That does not seem anywhere near shallow enough to make it any kind of no-brainer to take AA all the way.

 

[Legend5555]

He's got 150BB after the preflop action. That does not seem anywhere near shallow enough to make it any kind of no-brainer to take AA all the way.

It was a straddled pot, he was only 70bb effective to start the hand.

 

[kirchhausen]

Stack to pot ratio is less than 6. You don't HAVE to go all the way here, certainly, but it seems a little monsters under the bed syndrome to not bet in this spot.

 

[feltschmerz]

It was a straddled pot, he was only 70bb effective to start the hand.

So his SPR is, what? A bit less than 6:1. That seems a little frisky to me, but I don't play live much.

 

[feltschmerz]

Stack to pot ratio is less than 6. You don't HAVE to go all the way here, certainly, but it seems a little monsters under the bed syndrome to not bet in this spot.

Oh, definitely bet. And pretty big. But at least *consider* folding if V raises one of your value bets.

 

[kmccormick100]

I’m usually continuing with a small cbet on a board that favors my opponent’s range, $20-25ish, but the $40 stack does complicate things a bit. I’d probably make it $40 to prevent any weird raise dynamics from the short stack, and you have to call a raise from V2 on such a draw heavy board.

 

[grebe]

I notice the majority bets big here...my question to you is what do you do with AK here? AQ? JJ? TT? All these hands are in my range, and I would play them all the same...

I ignore the short stack and play my hand as if I were head's up with the big stack and bet $25. As stated above, I am doing this with any hand I got here with, and I have position on the main player....which I definitely plan to use to my advantage. With specifically AA, I would like to get value from any random pairs (of which he could have many), flush draws, straight draws, and overs. We are not looking to fold out anyone with this bet, as many hands are doing pretty well against us equity wise, but we are still beating at the moment. With a small bet, we are keeping our range in tact. With a big bet, we are polarizing, I think.

So here's what we got:

Preflop is pretty easy and I don't think much to talk about, but if you would like to comment here please do:
V1 ($800) straddles to $5
Fold to Hero ($360) in UTG+1 with , raise to $20
V2 ($60) in CO calls, V1 calls.
Pot is $60

Flop:

V1: check
Hero: ???

Hero: Bet $25
V2: folds
V1: Calls
Pot: $105 (-drops)

Turn:
V1: check
Hero: ???

 

[kirchhausen]

I notice the majority bets big here...my question to you is what do you do with AK here? AQ? JJ? TT? All these hands are in my range, and I would play them all the same...

I ignore the short stack and play my hand as if I were head's up with the big stack and bet $25. As stated above, I am doing this with any hand I got here with, and I have position on the main player....which I definitely plan to use to my advantage. With specifically AA, I would like to get value from any random pairs (of which he could have many), flush draws, straight draws, and overs. We are not looking to fold out anyone with this bet, as many hands are doing pretty well against us equity wise, but we are still beating at the moment. With a small bet, we are keeping our range in tact. With a big bet, we are polarizing, I think.

So here's what we got:


Hero: Bet $25
V2: folds
V1: Calls
Pot: $105 (-drops)

Turn:
V1: check
Hero: ???

I c-bet with all of those hands, and the same amount.

As played, I bet $70-$80 on the turn. If he calls check back the river. If he raises, probably let it go. If he folds, start stacking those chips.

 

[grebe]

Well I can’t claim to be any good myself but I’m trying! AA here is a decidedly middle strength hand and the callers have the nut advantage with all sets IMHO. If we plan to bet I think signs point to betting small here. I would rather be in a position to X/C vs facing a raise after making a large bet here.

I agree with this. As you can see though, irrational behaviors happen in live poker....short stack should be calling pretty wide here and he folded.

 

[Legend5555]

Oh, definitely bet. And pretty big. But at least *consider* folding if V raises one of your value bets.

One of? The only one you could fold to would be a flop raise. Say you bet $40 and only V1 calls. Pot is now $140 and we have $300 left. If you bet again on a brick and get raised, can you fold? Say you just bet like $75, V1 jams. Pot is now $515 and you only have $225 left. You folding AA getting better than 2:1?

 

[kmccormick100]

I notice the majority bets big here...my question to you is what do you do with AK here? AQ? JJ? TT? All these hands are in my range, and I would play them all the same...

I ignore the short stack and play my hand as if I were head's up with the big stack and bet $25. As stated above, I am doing this with any hand I got here with, and I have position on the main player....which I definitely plan to use to my advantage. With specifically AA, I would like to get value from any random pairs (of which he could have many), flush draws, straight draws, and overs. We are not looking to fold out anyone with this bet, as many hands are doing pretty well against us equity wise, but we are still beating at the moment. With a small bet, we are keeping our range in tact. With a big bet, we are polarizing, I think.

So here's what we got:


Hero: Bet $25
V2: folds
V1: Calls
Pot: $105 (-drops)

Turn:
V1: check
Hero: ???

The K completes one of the main draws on that flop in QJ, which he has all of the combos of calling a raise from the straddle I imagine. It also improves KT and K9ss to two pair. I’m ok with either betting ~ $60-70 and folding to a raise, or checking back the turn and calling a bet on all but the worst runouts (flush completing cards that bring in a one liner).

 

[Legend5555]

I notice the majority bets big here...my question to you is what do you do with AK here? AQ? JJ? TT? All these hands are in my range, and I would play them all the same...

I ignore the short stack and play my hand as if I were head's up with the big stack and bet $25. As stated above, I am doing this with any hand I got here with, and I have position on the main player....which I definitely plan to use to my advantage. With specifically AA, I would like to get value from any random pairs (of which he could have many), flush draws, straight draws, and overs. We are not looking to fold out anyone with this bet, as many hands are doing pretty well against us equity wise, but we are still beating at the moment. With a small bet, we are keeping our range in tact. With a big bet, we are polarizing, I think.

So here's what we got:


Hero: Bet $25
V2: folds
V1: Calls
Pot: $105 (-drops)

Turn:
V1: check
Hero: ???

Good card for your range, but it also hits a draw that is easily in V1's range. Given you bet so small on flop and the short stack folded, you have some room to play here now.

V1 could have called with all sorts of stuff on the flop given you bet size. So I don't think you can check now. You need to charge the pair plus gutter and Tx hands. Bet somewhere between $60-80. If river bricks and he checks it's an easy value bet targeting whatever weak parts of his range you think are left. If he jams here or leads a gross river, we will have a decision.

 

[feltschmerz]

One of? The only one you could fold to would be a flop raise. Say you bet $40 and only V1 calls. Pot is now $140 and we have $300 left. If you bet again on a brick and get raised, can you fold? Say you just bet like $75, V1 jams. Pot is now $515 and you only have $225 left. You folding AA getting better than 2:1?

Yeah, that's fair. I think if OP were to bet $50 on the flop and get raised to $200, I wouldn't tell him that he was so short he had no choice but to get it in, but after that point, yeah.

 

[grebe]

V1 ($800) straddles to $5
Fold to Hero ($360) in UTG+1 with , raise to $20
V2 ($60) in CO calls, V1 calls.
Pot is $60

Flop:

Hero: Bet $25
V2: folds
V1: Calls
Pot: $105 (-drops)

Turn:
V1: check
Hero: Bets $45
V1: calls

***thoughts here are "good card, I can now get more value from Kings"....secondary thoughts are: "this hand hits my range hard, I probably cannot get value from smaller pairs now" to "shit, a bunch of two pairs just got there". I decide to bet relatively small again. My reasoning is there is a whole mess of holdings that my opponent can have that beat me, but there is still some stuff out there to get value from to, and I really don't know what side of the coin I am on. I figure if I bet the turn, I have position and thus I control the outcome of the river. A small bet allows me to check/fold and allows my opponent the opportunity to be sticky with a hand like KQ or even AT....but unfortunately the number of hands in his range I beat is getting smaller and smaller. I am planning to call it good with 2 streets of value here and hope to get to showdown.

River:

V1: check
Hero: check...announces AA.

V1 is disgusted when I announce...I will let yall guess as to what they had (they showed)