Big ouch, someone help me?

[unagi]

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (9 handed)

saw flop|<font color="C00000">saw showdown</font>

MP2 ($20.25)
MP3 ($12.50)
CO ($15.85)
Button ($17.95)
<font color="C00000">Hero ($79.75)</font>
<font color="C00000">BB ($52.63)</font>
UTG ($75.20)
UTG+1 ($100.28)
MP1 ($38.60)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A/images/graemlins/club.gif, A/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls $0, <font color="666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="CC3333">MP2 raises to $2</font>, <font color="666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to $4</font>, BB calls $3,50,50, UTG+1 calls $3.50, MP2 calls $2.

Flop: ($16) 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">Hero bets $10</font>, BB calls $10, UTG+1 folds, MP2 folds.

Turn: ($36) K/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">Hero bets $40</font>, BB calls $38.63 (All-In).

River: ($114.63) 5/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Final Pot: $114.63

Results in white below: <font color="white">
Hero shows Ac As (two pair, aces and eights).
BB shows 8s 7d (full house, eights full of fives).
Outcome: BB wins $113.26. Hero wins $1.37. </font>

please interpret before reading the results in white, and let me know where you think i went wrong. this hand came after a long and rough day of "bad beats" (which were probably mostly my fault), so want to get an analysis.. thanks /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[SkippingGoat]

Don't minraise preflop. If he raised to $2 he's almost certainly going to call more than $2 more. This is a very bad play.

Pot it on the flop. Why give hearts anywhere near odds to call? On a paired board with a heart draw you want this pot now.

Rut roh, you got called on the flop by the BB on a paired board. Your mission now is to get this hand to showdown as cheaply as possible. Instead, you pushed. Very bad play.

What is that you say? 87o should have never called $4 preflop? Welcome to the world of small buy-in no limit. Bad players slow play open trips like it's their full time job. Don't be the sucker here.

[SirArthur]

I thought this was limit poker for a minute with your preflop raise of $2.

You have a raise in front of you and you are holding rockets, a great situation. Throw a real raise in there. Don't let them see a flop for cheap. A while back I used to play those Party games, and I'd often push in this situation and get called maybe 50% of the time.

Like the prior poster stated, after he calls your flop bet slow way down on that paired board.
If you push, you're likely to only be called if you are beaten.

[FeelGoodAboutHood]

I don't like the pre-flop re-raise. With Aces, if anyone shows any agression pre-flop I'm coming back over the top of them with a substansial raise, because that's really the only way you're going to win a big pot here. Instead you let enough people in to where, if you do play a big pot, after the flop, you're most likely behind.

One thing from SuperSystem that I think is relevant to any level of no-limit is that Aces usually either win a small pot or lose a big one, and in my experience, the big losses come from letting people in too cheaply.

[unagi]

all sounds like good information guys - i guess i didn't realize that the $3.5 was too cheap, and will definitely try to play more aggressively next time around. i also agree about the call on the flop - i guess i was being hopeful about him having an overpair, but even then should've at LEAST backed off when the K hit. either way, i think i've learned a bit from my mistake, and thanks for all of your input.

[SkippingGoat]

It's not the "$3.50" that was too cheap. In fact, if it was limped to you I'd say that raising to 8BB might be excessive. It was that $2 was too cheap for the initial raiser. As a general rule of thumb in cash games, I would NEVER min-raise preflop. In fact, one could safely eliminate the min-raise from their entire NL poker game and probably be better off for it. I'd say one of the only times I'd minraise post flop is if I have a MONSTER that I'm looking to get paid off and there's almost no cards that could come to compromise my hand. At Party tables if you're thinking about hitting the "raise" button I'd think again.