What do you think of this laydown?

[el_grande]

NL home game, 6-handed. $20 buyin, $.25, $.50 blinds.

I am dealt AA MP.

Pre-flop I raise to $2.

Comes around to a solid, tight-agressive player on the button. He reraises $5. I reraise another $5. He reraises $10. I call. Everyone else has folded out.

Opponent has me covered- he probably had about $80, and I had $50.

Flop comes K X X.

I bet $2. WITHOUT HESITATION he goes all in.

I lay it down thinking he must have KK.

You think he'd risk his stack with AK, or was it a good laydown?

This may seem like an unanswerable question so if you think so then I'll ask it in a more general way: Is it OK to laydown when there's only one possible hand someone can beat you with?

[Acesover8s]

You got yourself into this situation by just calling his last bet preflop. Move the rest of your chips in preflop, hes not going to fold KK, nor probably a number of other hands you have dominated. You don't mind taking the pot down already anyway.

If your read is that strong, go ahead and lay it down, but if your read was Kings all along then you definitely played the preflop wrong.

I would also look into getting a deck without X's in it. They are nonstandard cards, and it is impossible for those of us who play with X-less decks to help you out here.

[tewall]

Without question, you should go all-in pre-flop after you were re-raised. The whole idea with AA is to get all the money in pre-flop if you can, and you had a perfect situation.

Betting $2 on the flop doesn't make any sense.

If I'm reading every thing correctly, there's about $50 in the pot and you have $50, so when your opponent sets you all-in, you're getting 2 to 1 odds to call. So if you think your hand has a 1 in 3 chance of being good, you should call.

Since going all-in is only a pot-sized bet, the answer is yes, your opponent would risk his stack with AK. Since he's more likely to have AK (and other possible hands) than KK, you should call.

Regarding your general question, if you should fold if there's only one possible hand that can beat you, the answer is usually you can't. Not unless your opponent is a super rock.

The way to formulate the question is in terms of the odds it takes to call vs. the pot. For example, in the case you game, your opponent bet about the pot, say 50 into a pot of 50. That means it costs you 50 to win a pot of 150, which is giving you 2 to 1 odds, meaning you should call if you think you have a 1 in 3 chance of your hand being good.

[el_grande]

[ QUOTE ]
You got yourself into this situation by just calling his last bet preflop. Move the rest of your chips in preflop, hes not going to fold KK, nor probably a number of other hands you have dominated. You don't mind taking the pot down already anyway.

If your read is that strong, go ahead and lay it down, but if your read was Kings all along then you definitely played the preflop wrong.

I would also look into getting a deck without X's in it. They are nonstandard cards, and it is impossible for those of us who play with X-less decks to help you out here.



[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry about the Xs, as I said this was a home game (no hand history saved) and it was a couple of months ago. It was a rainbow.

It wasn't obvious to me that he had KK until his move on the flop. So point taken about going all in before the flop. I'll consider it when this situation comes up again.

[el_grande]

Thanks for the post.

I bet $2 pre-flop because other than the player I ran into, this is a very loose-passive game. You hardly ever see a raise pre-flop. If I had made a bigger bet, under normal circumstances (solid player not having an excellent hand) I would win 75 cents with AA.

[Zag]

When you say that you had $50, I assume you mean after the preflop betting, yes? Because if you started the hand with $50, then you have only $26 left, which, to me, is a pretty easy call of a $74 pot. If, though, it is a $50 call of a $100 pot, then it is a little more questionable.

Two mistakes, I think: Why did you stop raising preflop? You have the best hand, make him pay to draw on you. If it was meant as deception to get him to overplay his hand post-flop, well, it succeeded (maybe) and then you got gunshy. If you were absolutely sure that his last raise could only be AA or KK, plus, you have been playing aggressive enough that you could reasonably be put on QQ for your betting, then this (and the fold on the flop) makes sense. Without these sureties, I would not have quit raising preflop, and I would be more inclined to call on that flop.

The second mistake was betting the pitiful $2 at a $40 pot. That is just begging him to come after you and put you in the spot that you were in. If you make a real bet, say $30, then his coming over the top could mean something. Of course, then you are pot committed anyway. In fact, this was the prefect bet if you wanted to entice AK to come at you. Then he did, and you got scared.

I put him on AA, KK, or AKs, maybe AKo. The ways he could have these hands are:
AA: 1 way
KK: 3 ways
AKs: 1 or 2, depending on the suit of the K on board relative to your Aces
AKo: 5 or 6, depending again.

Let's discount the AKo by half because, we think it is less likely from his preflop action. Therefore, there are 8 (or 8.5) hands we can put him on, and you are only behind 3 of them. I think I make a crying call, here.

Of course, I would not have gotten into this trouble, because I would have been pot-committed preflop. I would have made the same $2 bet, but I would have reraised by $15 after his $5 raise. If he raised again, then I would have beem all in right there, or close to it.

[felson]

He was talking about the bet after the flop came out.

I would have called on the flop. He's more likely to have AK than KK, and you even have outs against KK.

[el_grande]

You guys tore me a new one. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Yes, I made some bad errors. Based on some talk between him and some other players after the hand, I believe he did have KK.

Definitely playing this more aggressively next time, though! Thanks.

[CoinLaundry-CptC0ckwell]

I'm gonna go right ahead and say it again:

When you get re-raised with AA pre-flop, you come back and stick *every* *single* *chip* *in*. This is the opposite of gambling. If you only take the re-raiser's raise money, well, it's better than losing.

When you catch a K with a ragged board on the flop and you have AK, especially when someone makes an awfully weak bet into you, stick every single chip in. I'm suspecting your opponent did something to this effect.

Read the no-limit portion of Super/System at least twice before you play again. Read the AA, KK, and AK portions repeatedly and use them to figure out what your opponent's probably thinking.

Be ready to stick every single bit of money into pots with confidence in many situations. When I have AA, I'm probably going to look under the table to make sure I didn't drop a chip at any point just 'cause I'd want to be sure it got in there and got matched.

[crockpot]

there is no reason you should have had money left to bet after the flop was dealt. when your opponent has acted that aggressively, he is almost certainly going to call your all-in reraise, and you will be a huge favorite (unless he has the other two aces).

i generally agree with your flop fold since you are probably against aces or kings, but this is still a difficult decision, which is another reason to push in preflop.

[el_grande]

Thanks for tatooing it on my forehead.

This hand was played when just about all I knew was which hands to play pre-flop. Now I have all the books.