limp-reraise hand

[soah]

Seven-handed 2/4 game. My first orbit. So far I haven't played a pot past the flop. Some dude has raised out of the blinds the last two hands, and then he check-folded on the flop the second time, so I'm guessing he just likes to raise too much without premium hands. He's probably a poor player. He's on the button now. Also, the dude on my left has been playing a bit too aggressive. He's UTG+1 this hand.

So I ($384) have AA UTG and limp in, UTG+1 ($588.50) minraises to $8, people fold, button ($281.50) calls, blinds fold, I reraise to $44, UTG+1 folds, button calls.

Flop TT2, two hearts. Check, check.

Turn Q, I bet $40, he calls.

River K of hearts, I don't have a heart, I think a while and bet $60.

Comments?

(Notes: Underbetting the pot is very common in this game, so it will not be taken to mean that I'm weak. People will not raise on a bluff. They will raise if they are fairly sure there hand is good, call if they think it's good, and fold if they don't think it's good. On the other hand, my overbet preflop is pretty rare, so he may not know what to think of it.)

[amoeba]

I like it.

What sized river raise are you willing to call ?

[PokerFink]

I think the river bet is fine as long as you plan on folding to a raise. In fact if you are fairly certain that villian will not raise with a worse hand, I would probably bet only 40.

Whats with the flop check?

[TheWorstPlayer]

Just bet the flop. And do this with more hands than just AA. Either you are toast or you are way ahead, I don't see what you hope to accomplish on the turn that you can't accomplish on the flop. He must know you have AA/KK unless you are trying to rep AK by checking the flop, but that just seems a bit silly to me.

[soah]

I didn't really have a clear plan postflop. That TT2 board makes it pretty hard for him to have a second best hand to give action with.

He certainly does not put me on aces or he would have just folded preflop... if I check here he may be more inclined to think that I just have AK or whatever, and I may be able to extract a bit more from him? I dunno. I just figure it's unlikely that he has more than two outs against me at this point.

[soah]

I'm pretty sure he does not know I have AA/KK. I'm unknown to him, and a typical player in this game wouldn't play AA/KK that way. Plus he seems to be a poor player as well.

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure he does not know I have AA/KK.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll go with your judgment here but what do you think he puts you on? That's a pretty big limp-raise...

I think you need to bet this flop -- if he doesn't put you on AA or KK, then he puts you on AK, right?

-dB

[soah]

Look at his stack size compared to my reraise. If he puts me on AA/KK there is no hand he should call with.

The competition at this place is uberfishy. I'm assuming he puts me on something like 99 or AJ or something else that doesn't want to see a flop. But he probably isn't overly concerned with my hand... he's just playing his own cards, and he has a hand that he wants to see a flop with.

And in case this isn't clear, I'm posting this hand because I'm not happy with how I played it. When I explain my reasoning for the things that I did, it doesn't mean that I think I was making correct decisions.

Normally I'm betting the flop in this situation, but I was swayed by the fact that my opponent is bad, he probably assumes I'm bad (this would be a good assumption about unknowns here), neither of us know what the other one has, and unless he has a flush draw, it's a way ahead or way behind situation. Since the guy put in 15% of his stack preflop, I'm going to have a hard time laying my hand down against him now, so rather than trying to figure out if I'm beaten I'd rather just focus on trying to extract the most the times that I'm still winning, and I somehow came to the conclusion that in this instance, that would be by checking the flop.

[TheWorstPlayer]

OK, I didn't realise how fishy this game was. Given this new information, I would say that his most likely holding is AK or JJ/TT. He wants to see either a flop that hits his hand (AK) or a safe flop (JJ/TT). He thinks he might have the best hand already and is therefore willing to put in a lot of money preflop (and a lot more postflop, if the flop is 'favorable'). So this is actually probably one of the good flops for you. Either he has quads or he is drawing to at most two outs. So a check is not bad here. But if you're going to make any money, you have to bet the turn. And the queen is a decent card for you for two reasons: 1) it's not an ace or a king so he might still like his JJ over your 'AK' and 2)there is an outside chance that he has AQ here, most likely suited.

Once the king hits on the river, he most likely won't call with JJ, but if he had AQ or possibly he even called your turn bet with AK (it's not like we haven't seen that before) then he may call another bet on the river. And the board is scary enough that I think it is an easy fold to a raise, so I like your river bet. So, now that I know the game is uberfishy, I like your play.

[PokerFink]

Soah you're outthinking yourself.

You can't say stuff like "look at his stack size, if he puts me on AA/KK he woulden't call preflop" and then say the game is "uberfishy." If the game is fishy, then no one is thinking about stack sizes. The fact that you bet 15% of his stack preflop is completely irrelevant. In fact, you said it yourself: he wants to see a flop, so he called preflop. Simple as that.

Bad players are willing to call when they are losing. They aren't thinking about what you have. Bet the flop.

If anything, bet the flop and check the turn and hope he tries to steal it from your 'AK'.