$11: Second-guessing myself to death/berate my play, please

[IdiotVig]

1.) The preflop raise is probably too weak, I'm sure. Should I be happy with pushing instead and getting the 105? Or perhaps make the raise slightly larger, say, 150, with the intent of pushing most flops?

2.) Given three callers, flop is an autopush, right?

3.) Let's say only two limpers call. What's your line on the flop? Push again?

I've had this similar situation (couple of limpers against my premium hand when I have a below-average stack) come up 4-5 times in the last couple of days, and it's driving me nuts.


***** Hand History for Game 2757098367 *****
30/60 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 15972479) - Thu Sep 22 18:26:14 EDT 2005
Table Table 11654 (Real Money) -- Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: LetItRide15 (460)
Seat 3: WreckChased (530)
Seat 4: highfly131 (760)
Seat 5: Verstingen (850)
Seat 6: LectricRaisr (635)
Seat 7: rondog999 (2365)
Seat 8: super_seth (600)
Seat 9: gemrich (955)
Seat 10: Opulence (845)
WreckChased posts small blind (15)
highfly131 posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to WreckChased [ As, Ac ]
Verstingen calls (30)
LectricRaisr folds.
rondog999 folds.
super_seth folds.
gemrich folds.
Opulence folds.
LetItRide15 calls (30)
WreckChased raises (85) to 100
highfly131 calls (70)
Verstingen calls (70)
LetItRide15 calls (70)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, 8c, 6d ]
WreckChased bets (430)
WreckChased is all-In.

[Nicholasp27]

i think it's fine

u gotta push when you have 430 chips with aa and there is 400 in the pot with a non-scary board (107, 75 shouldn't be calling 100 raise pf)

the general rule pf is 3BBS+1xlimpers, so you would raise 90+60=150, which is 30% of your stack

so you can make an argument for open-pushing here, but i like a raise of 100-150 here better and then pushing any flop

[downtown]

You want to raise more preflop in order to hopefully get only 1 caller. I would make it between t150 and t200 and push the flop if I got a caller.

[EnderFFX]

I would have raised a little more (120-15) so I get only one person calling me. The rest of the hand you played fine.

[jedinite]

T150 would be the standard raise here (3xBB + 1BB/per limper). Raising to 100 you're encouraging the multi-way pot which is the worst thing you can do with aces.

2/3rd the pot on a uncordinated flop, with the flop this coordinated I bet the pot and at the $11 expect to be called/pushed by a fourflush/OESD for sure. When the turn is a blank I bet the pot / push. But open pushing isn't terrible, the fourflush / OESD is coming along anyways at $11.

[Slim Pickens]

Why do you want only one caller when you'll be ahead on the flop about 70% of the time against three callers?

If you see all five cards, Pokestove says AA against three random hands is 62%. Against 77, 98s and KQo it's only 56%.

That doesn't necesasrily say anything about the flop by itself, but it shows how vulnerable AA is despite the fact that it's the best starting hand.