[Mackerel]

Hi All,

Been busy and haven't had much time to post here, but this hand happened earlier this week and generated quite a bit of discussion after the fact.

$10-$20 NL home game (I don't usually play in this game, and it's maybe a little bigger than I'm really comfortable with FWIW). I've been in the game about 2 hrs and it's been an unusal game. Villian on my immediate left is the big stack (~ 8k). I have never seen him before. He's been limping and calling raises a lot pre-flop (but not raising much himself), and been very, very aggressive post-flop (raising, reraising and check-raising maybe 75% of the hands). He's been pushed off a couple of hands, and made an idiotic score when he pushed with A3s on the turn w/AK53 onboard and spiked a river 3 to snap-off AK.

He's been pretty much running over the table which has gone into kind of a weak/tight mode. I've been getting crappy cards for the most part, and haven't really asserted myself yet either. I've raised maybe 4 or 5 times pre-flop, and won all of them with no contest except for one where I raised PF w/JJ, villian called, I autofired on an AKx flop, he came over the top and I mucked. Therefore, I'm guessing that he reads me for weak-tight.

When this hand comes up, I'm on the button with a slightly below average stack of just under 3k and AQo. 4 limpers to me. Usually I'd raise substantially here to clear out the sh#t hands, but I've raised and got no callers the last 3 hands in a row, and I'm worried that somebody will suspect I'm getting in there with crap and play back at me hard if I raise again, so I decide to just limp along with my AQ. Mistake?

Anyway, villian calls in the SB, BB checks and we go 7 handed to the flop. Pot $140

Flop A59 rainbow.

Checked to me, I bet $120. Villian calls, all others fold.
Pot $420

Turn 2 of 4th suit

Villian checks, I check behind with the intention of calling any reasonable river bet.

River Q

Villian pushes. WTF???!!!

$2800+ into a $420 pot?????? I go seriously into the tank.

If he's got me beat, why this idiotic bet? Wouldn't he want to win something? Does he expect me to call with anything less than a monster? Against anybody else at this table, this hand hits the muck faster than you can say "nice hand", but I just can't figure out this move (I do consider that that's the point of it). I think and think and try to pick up something from him (no luck, he's like a statue) until somebody starts talking about getting a clock for this game [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Then I say call.....

What do you think? Am I nuts? I still don't think of myself as a very strong NL player, so all comments and criticisms welcome.