[Percula]

I was playing some 5-150 spread limit at CAZ last night. I am UTG+2 and have AA and limp as I know that one of the 3 LAG's on the table is going to pump it up, as we have not seen a unraised pot in about 2 hours. MP limps, and sure enough one of the LAG's, the one on the button raises to 30, the blinds fold and it comes back to me, I RR to 90.

Now here is where it gets weired... MP does not say a word and makes a string raise in multiple trips to the stack to a $250 total to go, which is more than the maximum bet of $150 by $10. The dealer's reaction to the bet showed she knew this was a string bet, but did not say anything which IMO is correct.

A player next to MP says that the bet is too much, the dealer tosses MP back $10.

Before the button or anyone else has a chance to act I say "So how much of that was a string bet?". The dealer stops the action and tells the table that this is a string bet and after some talk, we decide that he brought out more than half the amount needed to make the minimum raise in his first reach and let his action stand as a mini-raise to $180.

Action folds to the button who flat calls as do I.

Anyway, now that you have the action, here is the thought process behind it...

1) I had about $1000 behind and covered both MP and button by about 2:1.

2) The button was hyper aggressive and I knew he would be firing hard at just about any flop.

3) That MP was a less experienced player than myself and would likely overplay a lessor hand given the chance, but could drive out the button as they have been going to war and the button has been getting sucked out on to the point that the button is somewhat scared of MP when he gets aggressive.

4) I had not played a hand in about 40 minutes and looked VERY tight and weak. I am wanted my reluctance to play the big raise from the MP player to look like I was scared and was weak, but had a hand I wanted to see the flop with.

5) I wanted to stack both players and wanted to act as a aggression dampener between the two of them in the action. I figured if MP went wild, which it looked like he wanted to, that I would lose the button to the heat, but with me to deal with the MP player would be more careful and tone it down a little.

Results; The "plan" worked perfectly I stacked both players with top set.

But afterwards I was feeling a little guilty that I might have taken advantage of the string bet rule. On the other hand I got the reaction/action I wanted... The players at the table got scared of me after that hand and I was able to pickup some nice pots with air afterwards.

So the post, I do not feel too bad about it, but am somewhat torn as to rather I was "in the right" or not.