Tough laydown

On the weekend I played in a club NL holdem tournament with 14 starters, 3 places paid.


The last 5 times we have held these tournaments I have won 3 and finished 2nd twice, where another player Neville has shared the top 2 spots with me every time.(As a result holdem isn't played nearly as much as we used to unfortunately).


The start bank was T3000 and we were playing in the 2nd level with 20/40 blinds. The UTG wildman open raised to 150, and then solid Neville fired it up to 450 from middle position. Folded to me and I find AA. I reraise to 1200. The blinds and wildman get out of the way, and Neville starts to think.


Here's my thinking on the situation. Neville knows that I will have a quality hand here, and he is also capable of laying down a pretty big hand out of position if he feels it is a coin toss or he is in trouble. This is especially true as it is early on in the tournement and it is me that has raised him.


I would expect that he would be able to drop QQ here as he is either against AA KK or AKs, and he would more than likely drop AK here as it is far too much of his stack to commit preflop on a drawing hand that he can't be comfortable with if he hits.


Eventually he decided to call, after thinking about moving in and then thinking about folding (based on my read anyway). Therefore I put him on KK and no other likely hand.


The flop came K52 rainbow, and Neville checked. I was pretty confident he was waiting for me to put my head on the block, so I checked in behind him and say the 7 turn for free. Again the action went check, check, and a 9 came on the river.


Now Neville moved in. The problem I have now is that Neville probably can guess what I'm thinking and will make this move with lesser hands than mine. However capable he is of making this move on the river, I still don't see him calling preflop without KK, ,so keeping in line with my read I mucked my cards and moved on.


This is almost more of a psychology question in it's essence, and Neville says he had AK and after checking to the river decided I must have QQ, but then again he has been known to tell a few white lies.


I don't know what I really want to know, I'd just like someone to tell me I did the right thing here.

> I reraise to 1200


There were T660 in the pot when it got to you, a pot sized raise would have been T1560. Yet you decided to underbet for 40% of your stack. This can only mean one thing: you decided to trap and move in on your next action.


> Eventually he decided to call, after thinking about moving in and then thinking about folding. Therefore I put him on KK and no other likely hand.


I wasn't there, but according to your description I would rather put him on AK than kings. After all, you layed him 5:2 on the call and to you his reraise might very well have looked like an isolation raise, so he cannot automatically put you on aces or kings.


> The flop came K52 rainbow, and Neville checked.


You already put up 40% of your stack, there are T2610 in the pot and you have T1800 left. At this point, you're committed. You're either a 9:1 favorite or a 1:9 dog, but you would have to be more than 75% sure that he has exactly kings (3 combinations) and not AK (6 comb.) or maybe even QQ (6 comb.) to lay down the hand.


Move in now. If he has kings, so be it. If he has AK, he will certainly pay you off for T1800 more with top-pair best kicker. But if he has anything else, you must not let him draw freely.


cu


Ignatius

Good analysis Ignatius. I get the feeling that i tried to overread his hand here, given the various factors.


In raising to T1200 I wanted to create a raise where he would be put to a decision for his stack, be it now or on the flop, andI thought that this size bet would aid me in reading his hand.


I'm not sure about this hand still, but I did get up to win anyway so it really doesn't matter too much anyway.

Once you've committed that much of your stack, there isn't any point in getting a good read on the opponent, you're in to the end pretty much guaranteed. Also, you've got AA, so it's not like you're doing this to read if he has AA, and if he doesn't have AA, who cares what he has (since you're potstuck anyway).


I'm not saying your raise was bad. It's a good size, actually. You can entice him to call now with AK, QQ, and other marginal hands for the situation, and then he'll be potstuck for the next bet if the flop doesn't scare him off (like AKx to his QQ).


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Not a good fold, IMO. Do you really think he would check the nuts twice? Anyway, if he had the nuts, he knew you were stuck and that you would have to call a medium sized bet...so he could slowly build the bets to keep you in and eventually put you all in that way. Thats why I always overplay AA in No limit tourneys...they are very tough to play postflop against aggression. So let it fly preflop.


If you were that nervous, bet the turn and check the river.

>There were T660 in the pot when it got to you, a pot sized raise would have been T1560.


Unless my understanding of pot sized raise is off, I believe it would be T1980. (call the 660 making the pot 1320 then raise 1320: 1320+660 = 1980). Of course if you're going to bet 2/3 of your stack anyway, may as well move in pre-flop.

No comment on the hand itself.


Assuming that you have a very large skill edge over the other players (excluding Neville), it would seem to be prudent to trust your read and avoid the spectre of busting out early. Just a thought.

There were T660 in the pot, but T60 were the blinds and T150 was dead money from UTG. Calling would have made the pot 660+450=1110, a pot sized raise would therefor have been to 1111+450=1560.


cu


Ignatius

That makes sense - thanks

My opinion exactly. Nevilles biggest weaknesses are that he is occasionally a little easy to read, and secondly that he likes to go for the check raise from a lifetime of playing limit.


Not going broke here did win me the tournament, so I think it's better to be safe than sorry when playing against weak opposition.