1-2 pot limit hl hand

Playing in a home game, the following hand came up:


UTG opens for $6. He's short stacked, with about $30 after his bet. I'm immediately after him, with black pocket aces.


I raise only to $12, hoping not to scare everyone out -- most people are heavily respecting reraises. I have $350 in front of me.


Folded around to the small blind, who thinks for a while, and then calls. I'm pretty sure he was considering reraising, but thought better of it eventually. He has $400 in front of him.


Flop comes ThQhKs. Blind checks, utg moves in for his remaining $25.


The question is, what should I do here? I am not convinced I'm ahead of him, but I can't lay the hand down. Should I raise to try and drive out the blind? Or will the all in bet and call scare him out just as effectively?


Anyway, I call, and I did it quite quickly. I maybe thought about it for 3 to 5 seconds, if that makes a difference.


SB (check)raises the pot, around $115 more.


What should I do?


Results in a separate post.


- target

I'd guess I lay it down here. You made it inexpensive for them to see the flop, hoping for a trap, but you got caught the other way and someone hit enough of the flop to beat you.


The prime consideration is that SB has you covered, so your whole stack is going in on the turn for sure and I wouldn't want to do that on this board since you only have 3 clean outs if you are behind.

I thought about this one for a while. He had thought about reraising, but didn't, had been my read. That means he has a big ace, probably AK, since I don't think he'd have considered it that strongly with only AQ, or a biggish pair, something like TT-QQ. If he'd had KK, I'm pretty sure he'd have repopped it.


The board is KQT, two hearts. There's no way he has broadway. I discount that immediately. He could have AK, JJ, or a set. If he has AK, I'm pretty far ahead, unless he has AhKh, in which case I'm barely ahead. I'm really only getting 1 to 1 on this call, too, since it's not obvious that I'm going to win the main pot.


If he has JJ, I'm in slightly better shape. He has 6 outs to the straight, and that's it. But a check-raise into a protected pot is a strong play, and I doubt he'd do that with JJ, since he's almost certainly drawing and not ahead right now. So I discout JJ.


That leaves a set, and I think that's his most likely hand. Specifically, I put him on QQ. QQ is a hand worth reraising with, but you may not want to against a reraising player, so it's something he'd have to think about. And top set is clearly worth a big move here, since there's no way *I* can have AJ for broadway either, given my reraise btf. Who knows what UTG has, but it's not like you could lay down QQ there either.


So I fold.


SB turns over AhKh (oh well, not as good a read as I could have hoped for). UTG turns over KQ, for top two pair.


The turn is a blank, the river is a low heart, and SB wins it.


So two questions. Should I have raised more preflop, and did I play the flop ok?


Thanks,

target

I think this is right. It's a lot of money to put in when I'm probably behind.


I think I very likely have 4 outs if I'm behind, though. The non-heart J's, and the Ad. If the guy has a J, I'm not behind yet. /images/smile.gif


Not that 4 outs is anything to write home about.


- target

Dave,


Preflop the blind size and typical raise size would help. If $12 is a real raise in that game, fine. One thing to consider is you might just call hoping to trap a raiser behind you. If there is none and there are several players, you usually just fold if you miss the set. Or you could raise a little too big, making it look like an isolation or steal raise, again hopefully getting action behind you.


After the flop your hand is weak. Fold.


Matt

Pot limit is a game designed to bust players who can't let go of big pairs.


Pre flop: the $6 raise is fine. A smooth call could have worked, too. The idea would be to inspire someone to try and push you out. Then you can come back over the top again. However, the $6 raise might be enough to inspire the short stack to go all-in preflop, then you can shut out anyone else's dead money. So that was fine.


The flop: With that flop, you are done with the hand. Period. You've invested $12, there's $36 in the pot, and you have someone behind you who ALMOST raised preflop but thought better of it. He hit that flop pretty hard, you can be sure.


I know it sounds crazy, but you should fold to the $25 bet. NOT because of the bettor, but because of the guy behind you. If it were heads up then you call for sure.


However, I know that's a tough fold to make. I don't know if I could do it in the heat of battle. Of course, the checkraise should seal it for you. If you even THINK of calling here you made a mistake.


One main reason is that you can be pretty sure the check-raiser is not making a move on you. He WANTED to make a move preflop and restrained himself. He was afraid of AA. Now he's no longer afraid of AA.


natedogg

I think you played it just fine. You got outflopped and escaped with relatively minor damage. next hand.

The $6 raise could also be incredibly sophisticated. It can be slightly sophisticated if you want to inspire some aggressive player between you and the original raiser to make a move.


It can be VERY sophisticated if you are trying to inspire the short stack to move all-in after a couple callers between you and the shortstack come in for $12. Then you trap a bunch of dead money and you are loving it.


Depends on the players in the lineup of course, but a baby raise here with AA is not automatically an awful play. It can be a world-class play if you are manipulating your opponents like a fine-tuned instrument.


Not only that, but target was able to get away from his hand on the flop after his little raise failed to instigate fierce pre-flop action. Bravo. Excellent play. Maybe it'll work better next time.


natedogg

now lets imagine a dozen more idiotic situations which would make this play correct. AA classic case of win a small pot or los a big one. Raise, Raise BIG, dont fuck around. (do it w/45s as well on occassion) Doesnt anyone remember the final hand of the WSOP, was it that long ago?

Don't give me too much credit here.


What I was hoping was that someone else would have a decent hand and make a move at the pot -- I really hate reraising with rockets and taking down a 6 dollar pot. This was more of a pot building raise so that there was potential for a bigger bet in the future, and to make it attractive enough that AK would make that attempt.


In retrospect, even the $6 raise was enough to stop the SB from making a big move, so if I were looking to trap preflop, I should probably have just called along. The medium size raise may have been a mistake.


The open for $6 was totally standard, btw. The reraise was a little small, deliberately.


- target

nt

I was the SB in this hand.


Normally, I'm going to reraise w/ AKs pre-flop, but I found Target's small raise pretty suspicious. It took a few seconds to decide to call, but my plan was to treat this as a drawing hand, and not go overboard with only a pair on the flop. The probable all in complicated the equation.


I got what I considered a pretty good flop /images/smile.gif My plan was to check raise Target, as I knew he would likely bet. I thought that the flop was scary enough that he would lay AA down, and make it hard for AK to call. If I'm against KK or QQ, oh well... I still had 12 outs. The fact that UTG bet AI and Target called didn't change my thinking much. I thought he made a tough but correct laydown. Comments on my play welcome also.


-Oz-