Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

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You invite this KJ ("off" for sure) jerk into the pot, why? What's the OBJECTIVE of your 1200 raise? What's your plan?? Apparently, you want to let idiots in cheap. This you accomplish with ease.
....
This was very poorly played. You trapped yourself. You literally handed this KJ idiot all your chips, voluntarily.

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Don't pay any attention to this post, this guy was thinking that your original figures were correct and you somehow manifested an outstandingly (illegally) weak raise of 1.5x the BB...

Based on that he figured your initial raise was too weak... and took some liberties with his pen (and logic)... I would NOT play aces the way this poster recommends.

Your 3xBB raise is proper. You played it hard after the flop -- he probe-bets (turns out its a 'lure' bet) but anyways, you are happy with the money in the pot and move in swiftly to protect your money and prevent unhappy accidents.

The fact that he flopped two-pair is irrelevant. Villain would have called you here if he flopped only a king. Or only a jack if it was top pair. He's not going to hit two pair or better often enough for you to worry about backing off.

Questioning your aggression in situations like this will result in -EV, because in the vast majority of cases you will not be behind here.

In kind, listening to the poster I quoted above will result in -EV.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You invite this KJ ("off" for sure) jerk into the pot, why? What's the OBJECTIVE of your 1200 raise? What's your plan?? Apparently, you want to let idiots in cheap. This you accomplish with ease.
....
This was very poorly played. You trapped yourself. You literally handed this KJ idiot all your chips, voluntarily.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't pay any attention to this post, this guy was thinking that your original figures were correct and you somehow manifested an outstandingly (illegally) weak raise of 1.5x the BB...

Based on that he figured your initial raise was too weak... and took some liberties with his pen (and logic)... I would NOT play aces the way this poster recommends.

Your 3xBB raise is proper. You played it hard after the flop -- he probe-bets (turns out its a 'lure' bet) but anyways, you are happy with the money in the pot and move in swiftly to protect your money and prevent unhappy accidents.

The fact that he flopped two-pair is irrelevant. Villain would have called you here if he flopped only a king. Or only a jack if it was top pair. He's not going to hit two pair or better often enough for you to worry about backing off.

Questioning your aggression in situations like this will result in -EV, because in the vast majority of cases you will not be behind here.

In kind, listening to the poster I quoted above will result in -EV.

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I don't care if you are ahead most of the time. I don't see the point in raising 4xpot on the flop. Just make a normal raise and get the rest in on the turn.

As for villain's play. He called a raise with a junk hand, made 2-pair and took out an overpair. Sometimes playing junk works. I assume it was KJs, which makes the call not that terrible.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

This may seem minor, but I'm betting 4xBB here. Usually at this stage of the tourney 3xBB is standard, and a bigger bet is going to look strong, depending on table conditions, and often take down the pot pf. Whether this extra bb makes button fold is questionable, but may be worth it. The thing about the 3xbb bet here is that if someone in MP calls, you're probably going to have some more company, and you want heads up with AA.

Of course the result was heads up, so you got what you wanted. I don't think you have the stack to be tricky with aces in this situation.

Your stack is too big to move all-in pf, and you can't let this go on the flop.

You played it fine.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
This may seem minor, but I'm betting 4xBB here. Usually at this stage of the tourney 3xBB is standard, and a bigger bet is going to look strong, depending on table conditions, and often take down the pot pf. Whether this extra bb makes button fold is questionable, but may be worth it. The thing about the 3xbb bet here is that if someone in MP calls, you're probably going to have some more company, and you want heads up with AA.

Of course the result was heads up, so you got what you wanted. I don't think you have the stack to be tricky with aces in this situation.

Your stack is too big to move all-in pf, and you can't let this go on the flop.

You played it fine.

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Why do you want to make KJ fold and take the blinds when you have AA?

I am not crazy about raising 4xBB with a strong handweven if it is not AA. Why signal what you have? Why do you not want action with a strong hand?

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

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I don't care if you are ahead most of the time. I don't see the point in raising 4xpot on the flop. Just make a normal raise and get the rest in on the turn.

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Sry bet, I looked closely at the size of stacks and indeed you are correct this push is over-defensive. Harrington says, (and it is something that rings in my head daily) that if you find yourself going all in to protect hands where you are ahead you need to seriously rethink each of those moves and make sure they are prudent.. you may be costing yourself EV.

A raise here, properly priced to give improper odds to draws, with the intention of committing more to the pot and getting it in on the turn will bring greater rewards in this situation over the long haul.

The only thing I would add is that if you allow this hand to see 4th street your going to have to be willing to contemplate a laydown if a scare card comes and the oppo wakes up on it.

A KJ flop is not entirely friendly to AA. I see danger will robinson... mostly on the horizon, but danger brewing none the less.

Say a KQJT hits on 4th, and oppo pushes at you. Do you call on principal? If you think you are gonna pay him off 100% of the time when he hits, it may be worth the box-out move on the flop to make your (and his) decision-making is easier on the turn.. Otherwise he is not making a mistake to call your raise as he has more than enough implied odds to ride you like a silly little pony when he hits.

Have to crunch numbers on his potential outs (5-8 here), but just looking at it quickly you'd probably still come out ahead in EV with the pot-building move on the flop, betgo..

humph... =P

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

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The only thing I would add is that if you allow this hand to see 4th street your going to have to be willing to contemplate a laydown if a scare card comes and the oppo wakes up on it.

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By 4th street, I am getting like 2-1 pot odds if I put in a reasonable raise. I am not folding AA to a scare card.What kind of scare card? The kings pair?

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

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I have my own way of playing Aces and it tends to work. One, if I have a big stack I am raising to the point that only strong hands can call, no more bad beats for Rich, though it still happens on occasion. Two, if short stacked, I slow roll and hope others might limp and of course push to any raise, this way I get as many chips into the pot and then double or triple up. This strategy worked perfectly on Full Tilt after suffering a bad beat suckout that took me from CL to almost out of the tourney. Just my opinion but this seems to work for me, so far.

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This is a trend that a lot of novice players get into and it is completely and totally the wrong way to look at this situation. When you have aces preflop you should not be looking to push people out of the pot as much as you seem to think you should. You want the smaller pairs, weaker aces and donkeys with sooooted cards along for the ride. The odds are in your favor here, especially against all the hands I just listed. Your opponent will outflop you on rare occasions, but the statistics prove that AA will hold up against a random hand 85% of the time and that does NOT change when you give the villain a tighter range like 88-KK,AKs/o,AQs/o. Why you would want to push out people with weaker starting hands is beyond me. Sure you hear lots of bad beat stories regarding pocket aces, but how many of those stories involve someone who misplayed the hand and ended up hanging himself? I think a lot of cases of Aces being beat fall into this category. On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, a properly played AA has a great chance of allowing a player to double up his chips. You don't want to miss this opportunity by playing the hand so hard that nobody wants to get in the pot with you.

Granted, going to a flop with 7 players holding AA isn't the best scenario but you still have the most equity in the pot in this situation. You're not the underdog in the hand unless the flop helps one of your opponents. I actually think the biggest problem in a scenario like this is your last 2 aces are likely to be dead cards in someone elses hand and your chances to improve are that much worse - leaving a smaller pocket pair with a chance of making a set and beating my big pair which is something the Aces can't do if the two remaining ones are held in other players' hands.

Things like this do happen but it does not mean that you want to push out hands that you could win more chips from. The idea here is to win other peoples chips and if you're purposely wasting pocket aces to steal blinds or win a tiny, meaningless pot then you are not likely to make it very far in a tournament. Play to take your opponent's chips - don't make it easy for him to keep them in his stack. Make it so that a player holding a medium pocket pair will play with you (and lose) - invite the AK,AQ,KQ,KJ type hands to call and come along for the ride (granted, hands like AK are usually coming along regardless).

As far as your strategy on Fill Tilt one night - that's results oriented thinking and goes against everything you said you're looking to do with a big stack. Why change your strategy when you are short stacked and have a greater chance of being knocked out of the tournament? Isn't this a time where you want to see a flop against a few opponents rather than the whole table of limpers? Why is this play good with the small stack but when you have a lot of chips to play with you are looking to minimize your action? It just seems to me that changing your strategy here puts you in the exact situation that you are trying to avoid when you have a big stack and you are raising people out of the pot.

If you're going to play scared that your aces are always going to suffer a bad beat perhaps you should take up Candyland or Tiddlywinks instead.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

What the hell. You have AA on the button and 20xBB. Villian would make the same play with KQ/KT. You beat plenty of hands here. This thread should be in the BBV forum.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Maybe I should have clarified some more on playing AA with a big stack. I usually raise 4x to 6x the bb with AA in early pos, but if I'm in late pos looking at several limpers, I'm raising 10x or more or even just push all in. As far as slow rolling when short stacked, the goal is to get as much in the pot to maximize value, especially in early pos, late pos I just push all in period. I by no means am advocating slow playing AA at all, I've seen too many people get cracked, to include myself, by slow playing. I've grown past the thinking I'm clever and slow playing and trapping seeing as how I've been beat doing just that. Having flopped nut flushes get beat on the turn by a full boat hurts. I'm also not saying that my way is the best way, just another approach that works from time to time. I still have alot to learn, trust me, and your critque is welcomed, but I'll crush you in Candyland.

-Rich

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
Villian has 10.5 orbits in his stack.
You have 8 orbits in your stack.

Here you can move-in, or limp and hope for a fool to raise you, and re-raise all-in pre-flop.
The little raise you made is your absolute WORST worst play.

The limp risks no raise preflop. You really do not have enough chips for this play.

The move in put him on a decision preflop with no alternatives while you hold the best hand with a weak stack fully deployed pre-flop.

So you move in. Automatic.

You invite this KJ ("off" for sure) jerk into the pot, why? What's the OBJECTIVE of your 1200 raise? What's your plan?? Apparently, you want to let idiots in cheap. This you accomplish with ease.

With your weak stack, you are not supposed to let anyone see the flop cheap in this spot !! If you had more maybe you could try limping and hope for a re-raise. If the flop is smooth and there is betting, you decide street by street from there. You can still get away with some chips if no one re-raises pre-flop (preventing your planned reraise all-in) and the flop is bad for your AA. Read this paragraph again.

You have a small stack and need to move in. Any play for all his chips preflop likely pushes him off the pot with that KJ button cheese. If he calls great - he makes a HUGE mistake.

This was very poorly played. You trapped yourself. You literally handed this KJ idiot all your chips, voluntarily.

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You can not be serious.

I wish I had that John McEnroe pic right about now.

Anyways, you played it fine.