Hand from Stars $150

[Rizen]

Is the hand converter down? It's not loading for me. So apologies for the raw stars format. Comments on all streets welcome. Villian in this hand has been very aggressive up until this point, although I haven't seen him showdown anything terribly out of line yet:

PokerStars Game #2966813636: Tournament #14413993, Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2005/11/03 - 22:08:58 (ET)
Table '14413993 13' Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: jonpijonpi (780 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 2: dark1013 (8120 in chips)
Seat 3: Rizen (2630 in chips)
Seat 4: sketchy1 (2795 in chips)
Seat 5: cwmizner (1295 in chips)
Seat 6: bruce 17 (2275 in chips)
Seat 7: Patsy130 (2778 in chips)
Seat 8: SuperNo:1 (4925 in chips)
Seat 9: ZeeJustinSux (2185 in chips)
dark1013: posts small blind 50
Rizen: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Rizen [Jc Js]
sketchy1: folds
cwmizner: folds
bruce 17: calls 100
Patsy130: folds
SuperNo:1: folds
ZeeJustinSux: folds
jonpijonpi: folds
dark1013: calls 50
Rizen: raises 400 to 500
bruce 17: folds
dark1013: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [5d Ac 2s]
dark1013: checks
Rizen: bets 600
dark1013: calls 600
*** TURN *** [5d Ac 2s] [8c]
dark1013: checks
Rizen: checks
*** RIVER *** [5d Ac 2s 8c] [6c]
dark1013: bets 1600
Rizen: ????

-Rizen

Edit: reads posted.

[LearnedfromTV]

I think you put yourself in a bad spot by raising to 500 preflop. A smaller raise gives you more flexibility postflop. As you played it, you can't call the river. He has an ace way too often. What else calls the flop?

[DJ Sensei]

It does look a lot like a line that a thinking opponent could take with a weaker hand than yours, after seeing you continuation bet on the flop and check the turn. (He has a big enough chipstack to do this with any playable hand) The river bet is fairly aggressive given the slow postflop action (another reason i think it could be a bluff). However, you can't call the bet, because if he does have an ace (or flush, or set, or 2 pair), you're done.

Basically, the villain played this hand very well, and you couldnt do much about it given the situation. Sucks that that ace came.


It should be noted, though, that if you can learn anything from this hand, its that against a thinking, aggressive opponent, if you took this same line with AK or AQ, you'd probably double up here. Raise preflop, continuation bet, check turn, bet river (or call/raise river if in position) is a solid line in the right situation. (I use it most often when a single A or K flops with low rainbow cards, and I have TPTK or TP2K against an aggressive opponent)

[EverettKings]

What hand exactly is he bluffing with here?

I just... can't think of any. He would check most anything made. He wants a call.

Everett

[Rizen]

I thought about it a while and used my time bank. Given that this was an aggressive player, the bet looked very suspicious to me. If he'd wanted a call, I would have thought he'd have bet less than putting me all in to entice a call. Eventually I did call, and he turned over 77 and MHIG. Even after I made the call though I wasn't very sure how many hands I was really ahead of here, and wasn't sure the call was really correct. Thanks for the feedback.

-Rizen

[Ian J]

I think you have to fold here on the river. He calls the flop when there are virtually no draws out there for him to be calling with. I think you played the hand optimally up to the river.

The only way I see you being ahead here is if the villain is thinking enough and ballsy enough to test you because your preflop raise is indicative of a strong pair. It could also be AK though, so it's hard to say. From the looks of it, he flopped a set or has A5-A2, in that order.