was it that obvious?

[Che]

$100 Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (6 max, 5 handed)

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

Button ($100)
SB ($188.70)
Hero ($104.05)
UTG ($93.20)
MP ($127)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A/images/graemlins/heart.gif, A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif.
<font color="666666">3 folds</font>, SB completes, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to $4</font>, SB calls $2.

Flop: ($8) 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif, T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="CC3333">Hero bets $6</font>, <font color="CC3333">SB raises to $12</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to $36</font>,

SB says: aces?

SB folds.

Final Pot: $56
<font color="green">Main Pot: $32, won by Hero.</font>
<font color="green">Pot 2: $24, returned to Hero.</font>

[Ghazban]

Lets see... minraise preflop in the BB, followed by reraising the check-raise on the flop? I'd say its pretty obvious you have a strong overpair here. You might take that line up to the part where you reraised the checkraise with just two big diamonds but that reraise pretty much screams "made hand" in 20-foot tall flaming letters.

[Fnord]

What's the point of a min pre-flop raise? At least pretend a little that you're pushing him off his hand... $6-$8 at least.

[SpiderMnkE]

I don't like the min raise either. Just make a 4x bb raise. A lot of times the sb will call this thinking you are trying to bully him. I think AA is much more hidden this way.

Trying to slowplay aces preflop against the sb's junk is very dangerous and might lead to a win a small pot lose a big one situation.

[Che]

Thanks for the responses! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

The PF raise is too small, granted. Once we get to the flop, is the reraise the way to go? Or should I call for deception? I do have position so I *might* be able to keep the pot small even if a scare card does hit.

Given that I don't want to see a diamond, an 8, a 9, or anything that pairs the board, I figured taking the $26 pot immediately was the way to go. Thoughts?

[Ghazban]

Well, with the number of scare cards on the board, there is definitely something to be said of the wisdom of picking up a fairly small pot here. If you just call the raise on the flop, your opponent might bet into you on the turn with top pair or a smaller overpair and you could win more that way. On the other hand, if any of the scare cards come, you will be put to the test if and when your opponent bets and you might end up getting bluffed out of the pot.

A couple key things to remember:

1) while aces are the best hand preflop, they aren't guaranteed to stand up unimproved once other cards are involved.

2) the hands where you win big pots are the hands where you have a good hand and someone else has a 2nd best hand. There's a chance you couldn't possibly have made any more money than you did, regardless of if you call or reraise the flop (like if an ace falls or he just has middle pair and an overcard that won't give you much more action)