[play2win]

AJo is tough to play UTG normally. But from your description of the other players it might be worth trying to pick up the blinds because everyone is playing tight. So not a bad move there (I would probably have gone 4x BB). Another factor to consider is how you have been playing, have you been picking up a lot of pots without showing down?

The one live player gives you some action which doesn't seem to surprise you. His flat call preflop tells you that he is either trapping holding a big hand or something marginal like Ax or mid PP. If he is an agressive/ loose player I would think that he would have re-raised a 3x BB bet with anything AQ or better.

It is hard to give advice because you stated all the action to the river, hind sight is 20/20. So my advice after the flop is kind of driven by the known action and might be skewed. You hit top pair on a favorible flop, great. I agree with the others, you make your mistake by betting too low. You are at least going to have to go 75% of the pot against an agressive player. The small bet is setting you up to have this stolen from you, which he tries to do. A check raise or re-raise with AJ is a little too agressive I think. So leading out strong and playing this straight forward is the only way to go. You don't need to make any fancy plays, taking the pot now with your hand would be optimal.

Knowing the outcome of the hand I would say that he held something like A10s (not spades obviously). You invested a total of 2400 post flop on this hand. I think you would have been better off using 1200 on the flop and taking it down or folding to an all-in re-raise.

Never the less I like leading out on the turn to recover from the blunder. Because he re-raised on the flop makes me eliminate pocket 8's (or 3's if he is that loose), with a rainbow flop you have to think that he would slow play a little. Knowing that he flat called the turn makes me think that your bet on the river is more for value than a stopper. I think you have his Ax beat. Knowing that he flat called it too eliminates the thought that he could have hit a backdoor flush too, so I have been lead into some of these conclusions.

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What's a better plan after I'm raised on the flop?

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Bottom line: throw and appropriate size, straight forward, bet out there on the flop. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]