Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Pokerstars 3+.30 2000ish people started down to final 150

Blinds 400/800 50 ante
Hero 15000
Villan 18000

Hero is UTG+1 with AA
Villan is Button

Hero Raises to 1200
BB calls

Flop KJ4 rainbow

Villan bets 1100ish
Hero reraises all in
Villan calls and shows KJ for 2 pair

Hero is out

Your Opinions are appreciated

Straight Flushes,

SAM

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
Blinds 400/800 50 ante

Hero Raises to 1200

[/ QUOTE ]
can you do that with these blinds?

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

I think some of the numbers in your post are wrong. Blinds maybe?

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

sorry blinds are correct

I made a 3bb raise
he made a 1/3 pot bet and I reraised all in

Sorry

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
sorry blinds are correct

I made a 3bb raise
he made a 1/3 pot bet and I reraised all in

Sorry

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you played fine.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

People will flop two-pair when you have an over-pair. It happens. Personally I prefer getting sucked out on real early though.

If it's any comfort to you - the exact same thing happened to me at a FFP sat to the Scandinacian open yesterday - only it was the third hand of the tournament - and I had kings against J9.

You played fine. I don't see how you could justify not pushing here - given there was no re-raise pf. You would have to be Uri Geller to put him on two-pair.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

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.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

It looks like you pushed for 4xpot. I don't see the point in that. I think you bust out anyway though. You also had outs to make a higher 2 pair.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ 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.

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

I definitely disagree with you Dan, unless of course you are joking and I failed to detect your sarcasm. He played it absolutely fine. If you know villain is going to call a 3 X raise (but no more than that) that screams monster with KJ than thats what you make it. You don't need to fear protecting your hand when you have the best possible hand preflop, you should be worried about getting the most value out of it. In this case I think our hero did. I don't think villain is going to call a push and if the flop comes king or jack high he probably commits all his chips. The OP played it fine.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

I agree with Matador on this one. 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.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ 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.

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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
 

[ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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
 

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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
 

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can not be serious.

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

Anyways, you played it fine.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Firstly it was not 1 bad beat, it was 3. I cleaned you out. During our first encounter you had 50,000 plus in chips and I had 15,000. I ended up with 65,000 chips and knocked you out fair and square.

very truly: the donkey

PS: Dan Mezick: I'm proud I came in 53rd in a field of 1878. Not bad for 4 months of play. I'm here lurking to learn. But find it a little disconcerting that the words jerk and idiot are used to describe an exchange I had.

PokerStars Tournament #16586799, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $3.00/$0.30
1878 players
You finished the tournament in 53rd place.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
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

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a good approach in a loose low limit game where people will call overbet raises.

Normally though, I just raise the same as I would with AQ or JJ or something, or come in as the first or second limper.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Now this is funny, a reply from the "Villan" himself. Now for some real perspective. Chzcake, what exactly were you were thinking when calling the PF raise, by that I mean, did you think he had a hand like AA or AK or small pair? Did you see the raise as a standard 4x raise and nothing to worry about or what? Your feedback is greatly appreciated on this, for all of us. I already you were jumping for joy on the flop.

-Rich

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

As mentioned I had bit deeply into his stack on two prior exchanges. I now had most of his chips. He made a comment about being hot earlier and now cooling off. The pre-flop bet was pretty typical of what was coming out from medium strength hands. I didn't read him as anything too strong...maybe a medium pair at best. I also thot he might be on tilt and was looking for a chance to finish him. So I called with a KJ. Obviously I flopped a KJ and when he raised all in I buried him. Whats funny is hero is playing the victim of a donkeyfield. The truth is, he just shot himself in the foot.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
I still have alot to learn
-Rich

[/ QUOTE ]

This is about the only part of your post that is right. Keep reading here.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
Chzcake said: "Whats funny is hero is playing the victim of a donkeyfield. The truth is, he just shot himself in the foot."

[/ QUOTE ]

My response, although somewhat called for, was undignified. Fact is, hero played very well to accumulate $50,000 in chips to that stage of the tourney and I'm sure I could learn a lot from him.

cheers!

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Chzcake said: "Whats funny is hero is playing the victim of a donkeyfield. The truth is, he just shot himself in the foot."

[/ QUOTE ]

My response, although somewhat called for, was undignified. Fact is, hero played very well to accumulate $50,000 in chips to that stage of the tourney and I'm sure I could learn a lot from him.

cheers!

[/ QUOTE ]

Like how not to call early position raises with KJo.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Wrong. You didn't do this. I never had 50,000 in chips in that tourney what was the screename of the dude you knocked out? I don't go by sngsam on pokerstars.

SAM

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

1.The donkey in this scenario was me. I was mad that I played this so hard when a scare flop came.

2. It wasn't you.

3. If you did have a similar hand with someone else...I still think it's a bad call preflop but not horrible.

Straight Flushes,

SAM

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
As mentioned I had bit deeply into his stack on two prior exchanges. I now had most of his chips. He made a comment about being hot earlier and now cooling off. The pre-flop bet was pretty typical of what was coming out from medium strength hands. I didn't read him as anything too strong...maybe a medium pair at best. I also thot he might be on tilt and was looking for a chance to finish him. So I called with a KJ. Obviously I flopped a KJ and when he raised all in I buried him. Whats funny is hero is playing the victim of a donkeyfield. The truth is, he just shot himself in the foot.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like villain was eager to get involved in pots with Hero for a personal vendetta and therefore got involved with a weak hand in a marginal situation? And you're proud of this why?

Fold PF.

As for Hero, the hand was played fine.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

"the statistics prove that AA will hold up against a random hand 85% of the time"

Isn't it more like a little bit over 30%?

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't it more like a little bit over 30%?

[/ QUOTE ]
WTF? No. Maybe against 9 random hands.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

you are right of course--that's what I was thinking of.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
Wrong. You didn't do this. I never had 50,000 in chips in that tourney what was the screename of the dude you knocked out? I don't go by sngsam on pokerstars.

SAM

[/ QUOTE ]

My read is he is an imposter.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
PS: Dan Mezick: I'm proud I came in 53rd in a field of 1878. Not bad for 4 months of play. I'm here lurking to learn. But find it a little disconcerting that the words jerk and idiot are used to describe an exchange I had.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why, he's right.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

I will keep reading on here, lots of great info. I'm going to assume this was the 3.00 + .30 rebuy from Sunday right? Well I played that same tourney on Monday night and finished 9th. Sure I was the first to bust on the final table, but jeez, it was 2:30am and I go to work around 5:30am. I'll do one even better, I'll post the hand history and you can have a whirl seeing what I did the entire run, all 383 hands. You will see that I in fact did get lucky a couple of times but only needed it those 2 or 3 times to begin with. Look for the post later tonight.

-Rich

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Candyland can have some truly brutal action if you get a few LAGs in the game.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Certainly your finish is strong (top 3%) and I'd be very pleased with it also. My use of the sharp words were to describe the opponent types that will call your small preflop AA raise-- types that come with just about anything.

[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

The way I may play AA here is simply my opinion of the best way to deal with the poker situation as described.

Lets get back to the hand itself.

You can lose very big pots with AA and KK. It has to do with being unable to get away. Tough players can play these hands more creatively because they are 100% capable of making that AA or KK laydown. I know you are new by the way this was played and so I advise to you the straightforward approach.

My opinion of the small raise remains the same-- it is far too small. I see what you try to accomplish-- you want to build a pot. Your ideal scenario is to get one caller. Here you did. In my view you got very lucky more players did not come in light of your very small raise.

My own view of the hand is to push with it here and to not get too greedy with it. I'm not trying to build a pot-- I want to take the blinds down. They represent a large enough percentage of my stack to be nutritious "as is".

A decent alternative would be to bet $3500 or so at the pot to thin the field and still hope for one weak caller who fails to suck out.

Try experimenting with many different ways to play specific hands and tourney scenarios. It can make you much more confident and potentially menacing (and thereby much more effective) at the table.

Good luck to you.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
PS: Dan Mezick: I'm proud I came in 53rd in a field of 1878. Not bad for 4 months of play. I'm here lurking to learn. But find it a little disconcerting that the words jerk and idiot are used to describe an exchange I had.

[/ QUOTE ]
Why, he's right.

[/ QUOTE ]

why the [censored] would calling a raise with KJ make someone a "jerk"? it might make him a poor poker player, it might make him a great poker player, but it sure as [censored] doesnt say anything about his personality.


also, i would comment on the hand, but the OP is so [censored] up that i don't feel like trying to piece it together. maybe use a hand history next time. or, like durron said, post this in BBV.

Re: Donkeyfied AA hand
 

Why reraise all in? Won't that mostly get called only when you're beat?

Not knowing I'm beat at this point, I'm not trying to force a fold from a worse hand. I'm trying to extract value.

The small bet by the BB looks like a feeler/blocking bet, so I'd make a reraise about 3-4k on this flop. Then another bet of the same amount on the Turn.

I tend to chicken out on the River, but a value bet there might be in order also.

This line might've ended up costing me my whole stack in this case, but seems like it would make more off of hands like KQ, K10, or Q10 that would be inclined to stick around for a bet but not an all in.