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[rwesty]

Blinds 15-30. Everyone has been playing tight. My stack is 975. Cutoff has 1100. I am dealt AKo UTG + 1. Raise to 100. Cutoff calls. Everyone else folds. Flop Q-10-10. I bet 100. Cutoff calls. Turn is J, giving me a straight. I bet 150, cutoff raises to 350. What should my action be?

[Phoenix1010]

Wow, that's really tough. My first thought is that you only have 625 chips left and you should probably take your chances with your made straight. I'd expect that the competition at the 4th step is fairly strong, although I could be overestimating. With What will a strong player cold call a standard UTG+1 raise, flat call a flop bet, and then weakly raise a turn bet?

Hands you hope he has: AA, KK, AT, KT, QJ, AQ, KQ

Some players will trap with AA by flat calling preflop raises. However, I don't think too many players will flat call a flop bet here with unimproved aces, especially with two broadway cards hitting the flop. I think the average player will raise the flop to avoid giving free cards, and to find out whether the aces are still good.

You can't really hope for KK; KK is almost always a preflop reraise, as it's more vulnerable than AA.

you could see ATs or KTs from a very loose player, but I wouldn't count on it. The flop call makes sense here, as its expected that someone will slowplay trips. But like I said, it would take a very loose player to call with these easily dominated hands preflop, and you described the table as tight.

AQ makes sense preflop, but why no raise on the flop? TPTK does not want to give free cards.

KQ is not a calling hand for tight players, but the flop and turn play make more sense with this hand. KQ is almost univesally seen as a trap hand though, and I wouldn't count on a tough player wanting to play this hand heads up to an EP raiser though.

QJs is really the best possibility here. Although not too many players will call a raise with this heads up, he could have been playing this drawing hand to catch a friendly flop and bust you. It could be that your halfpot flop bet caused the villain to be unsure whether his queen was good, yet still gave him odds to "take one off" and delay a big decision until the turn. With the turn bringing two pair, He could have raised so small to allow him to fold to a push.

Hands you hope he doesn't have: QQ, JJ, QT, JT

With the exception of QT, these hands are a lot more likely.
QQ calls preflop to make sure an overcard doesn't fall, flops a miracle boat, and raises small to milk as much possible. JJ calls preflop, is unsure on the flop so calls the smallish bet, turns a miracle boat and raises small to milk as much as possible. JTs calls preflop to catch a friendly flop, slowplays flopped trips, turns a boat and raises small to milk as much as possible.

The cold call on the flop, coupled with the raise of 1/3 of your remaining stack on the turn screams of a slowplay. I don't expect even the toughest players to get too tricky with the blinds this small. I don't think he's going to raise with nothing, or with too marginal of a hand, this early in the game. Perhaps with deeper stacks or higher stakes, but I don't expect a tough player to risk so much of their stack on a tough play with not much to gain.

As I explained, based on his play, there aren't many hands you can reasonably hope for your opponent to have that you are ahead of. And with the hands that he's more likely to have, you are drawing dead. I didn't address the possibility of your opponent having AK as well, which would also justify his plays, but you shouldn't be playing for a split pot when there's a chance you're drawing dead. While it's tough to lay down an ace high straight, you should fold this and hope for an opportunity to double up later on. Hope it worked out for you.

Regards,
Steve

[adanthar]

Because of the structure, you don't need his chips badly enough to reraise and with the players at that level I think you only get called when you're dead.

Problem is, you can't fold - depending on who the other guy is you could be getting bluffed out of the pot and he could only have a single T in his suited connector.

I think you have to call down and hope he isn't full.