hand against good aggro

[TheWorstPlayer]

I don't have the HH, so this is from memory. Villain in this hand is a good player. He is tight and aggressive. Early in the session he built a big stack right away by getting three people all-in and his QQ held up. More recently, a bad player had called his bluff turn raise and river push with mid pair. Then shortly afterwards the same back player had doubled through again when Villain had two pair and the bad player had flopped a set. Since these two hands, villain had been playing much more aggro, although still tight. Possibly he was tilting somewhat, raising very frequently. I was min-reraising him when I had normal raising hands and he was folding to my min re-raises. This had happened three times so far. OK, now to the hand.

He raised in MP to $3, I min re-raised him with AQo. This was the first time that he called my re-raise.

The flop came all rags with a flush draw, pot was $12. Villain had about $25 left and I had him covered. Villain checks, I bet $10 and Villain pushes. What's my move?

[TrailofTears]

Does villain know your capabilities? Is he familiar with your "ability to lay hands down?" Just curious, as it may make a difference. I would lay it down, as it seems more like a money extraction than a "move," since he is only a bit more than min-raising it which doesn't seem like he is trying for fold equity. But, to really know, I would have to be sitting with him and have seen his play.

-T

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
Does villain know your capabilities? Is he familiar with your "ability to lay hands down?" Just curious, as it may make a difference.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, I think he is. We have been playing together for a while now and I have played with him before. He knows I am a good player. Does that tip it enough towards calling that you would actually do so?

[TrailofTears]

I don't think so. Thanks for the info though.

[TheWorstPlayer]

I'm not so techno-savvy, but I really should have added a poll to my initial post since I am very curious how many people would call and how many would fold here. So I am going to post this again and try to add a poll. Hope that is okay....

[jhall23]

What was your postion in this one? Do you remember if there were any players in between you two that had called his initial raise? I'm thinking the more likely it was to be heads up with you the more likely he could be making this play against you with any 2 since he knows you can make a laydown.

[TheWorstPlayer]

There was a player in between us but he folded. There were still two players to act after me since he was UTG+1.

[jhall23]

So by the time your re-raise gets to him it's head up I take it. Seems like from your description of event's leading up to this he has just decided to raise more of his limping hands cause he is still playing tight but all of a sudden is extra aggro. After 3 previous times he may think it is a good time to play back at you. If all that is true it definetly seems to add to your chances of being ahead. I'm still leaning to a fold I think though, but I am really curious to know what he has.

I'll now go through some obvious things but just thinking out loud. You need to win this ~28 % of the time to make it correct right? So if he has a small overpair you aren't getting odds unless you have the A of the flush draw and then it's right on the border. If he has AK,AQ on the flush draw he has you crushed but I would think he might push at least AK pre-flop since you have been pushing him around. Set obviously no odds. If he has any other flush draw you have odds to call. And then the other hands like AJ, KQ etc you are good.

Yeah I think I fold this.

[TheWorstPlayer]

Yes, it was heads up to him when my re-raise got back to him. Interesting analysis, thanks. It seems, though, that given your analysis and if he is enough of a move-maker, I might actually be ahead enough of the time to make it a call. Looks like this might be a feature of our relatively short stacks. No?

[jhall23]

Yeah I'm really torn on this. I definetly think everything leading up gives it a higher probability he might be playing back at you but I don't know how much it is. With the short time allowed to think about these things online it would lead me to fold.

The thing is he might even be making a move with 99, 45s or whatever and not even realize he is giving you bad odd's to call cause you could have a pair or overs. He can't just wait for a hand if you are re-raising his raises a good amount. This might be a game theory type situation where I will call about 1/3 of the time. So get out your randomizing machine and let it make the call for you.

But on the other side of things playing devil's advocate to my other thoughts, with only 15 more on the re-raise he has to realize with an overpair you probably have to call so he has got to put you on missed overs to make a play without a hand better than one pair, unless he is applying 3rd level thinking.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah I'm really torn on this.

[/ QUOTE ]
Me, too. I let my whole clock tick down and then I . . . /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[jhall23]

... Called and won, but aren't sure if that is the right move??? /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
... Called and won, but aren't sure if that is the right move??? /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, you're good. I beat his K4o or whatever crappy no pair he was playing. Too bad I was the villain in this hand, though. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[jhall23]

That was good fun, thanks. So now that we know the truth about the situation are we to assume the true villian is about as good as you are?

If he is better than you he might have been able to think it through and figure he is behind a good amount but not enough to fold. But seriously how many 25NL players are thinking like this. If he is not quite as good he probably didn't give it much thought and just made a bad call.

I think I like your play and I voted for fold in the poll.

[TheWorstPlayer]

I don't know. I have played with him a few times. He is looser than I am and less likely to make moves, but he may be better than I am. He certainly got the best of me last night! I think I have gotten the better of him overall, though. That table brutalised me last night, in general, after my big first hand with the QQ.

[jhall23]

BTW, I thought something was fishy here. I just couldn't see you doing the min-raise thing so much pre-flop. Then just based on the ?'s I was under the assumption that it must have been called and that seemed kinda odd too.

I like your play much better with either a decent draw or deeper stacks. Probably overestimated your opponents ability to lay this down here.

[BK_]

the fact that he finally called your min reraise then c/r the flop makes me think he has some sort of pair most ofthe time, and thus I fold without a second thought. he would play most pocket pairs and most big draws this way.

if he was tired of your min reraises and wanted to make a play, i would guess that he makes his re-steal attempt preflop instead of post. also sometimes he will make his steal attempt on the flop by just open pushing. sure he could be bluffing here, but i would guess that calling his all in with ace high is very -EV in the long run.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
the fact that he finally called your min reraise then c/r the flop makes me think he has some sort of pair most ofthe time, and thus I fold without a second thought. he would play most pocket pairs and most big draws this way.

if he was tired of your min reraises and wanted to make a play, i would guess that he makes his re-steal attempt preflop instead of post. also sometimes he will make his steal attempt on the flop by just open pushing. sure he could be bluffing here, but i would guess that calling his all in with ace high is very -EV in the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sweet. I would have gotten BK. /images/graemlins/smile.gif Thanks for the comment, man. (See the results post if you are confused.)