Odd Play With AA

Hello all-


Long time lurker and have been playing successfully for 3 years.


This hand occured along time ago so i don't remember all the details. MTT tournament $100 buyin on party, and I pick up AA UTG+1. UTG and I had comparable stacks and had the big stacks at the table. UTG who was a rock who didn't do anything crazy opened for 3X BB. I make it 8X BB with AA. He min reraises me.

Now I am 90% sure he has KK with the outside chance of AA. I can move in as a 4.5-1 favorite as I would almost always do and I knew he was calling no matter what. I made up my mind to just call his reraise and move in on any flop without a K. I plan on playing it safe if a K comes down. Keep in mind we are both chip leaders and we had about 100BB in our stacks preflop and I am VERY sure of his holding.

The flop brings a K, he checks and I check. Blank on turn and he bets 1/4 pot, I call. River brings a blank and he bets 1/4 pot and I call. I have no idea why I played it this way but it seemed to make sense at the time. Is it ever right to play AA this way?

-Jeff

[gobboboy]

I think it is definitely correct to push preflop. You've already put in a LOT of money and you have the better hand. It's correct every time. I can't see how you can be deathly afraid of a highly unlikely outcome like him having KK and flopping a set. Get your money in with the best hand. He's going to see a flop probably either way, and he's not folding KK if he hits.

[LearnedfromTV]

The problem is you give him a chance to get away from the hand. Preflop only one hand beats him, assuming he has KK. Postflop the board could scare him, especially since your reraise-call the minraise range is a lot wider than just big pairs.

You both have the same chance of flopping a set but he gets more from you when he hits than you get from him when you hit. There's also a chance that he puts you on AA-JJ 90% of the time, and the flop comes QJx and suddenly he can't beat anything. Or QJT where he can't beat AK either. Or three middle hearts and his kings are black. Granted, most of the time the money goes in anyway, but those few times when it doesn't, particularly the times when you flop an ace and he can get away easy, are too costly in terms of the chips you miss out on.

This is all true no matter what, I think, but especially if you are sure he is calling preflop. If the guy is so tight he might fold preflop, but once you only call he puts you on QQ and feels good on a low flop, then maybe, but I don't know how you could peg a guy's thought process that narrowly.

Hi LearnedFromTv,

I forgot to add that I didn't plan on moving in on a scary flop such as one with a Q, J, or 10 and I obviously would check an A flop. My plan was to raise smallish so he wouldn't get away from the hand on a dangerous board.

Also, my reasoning for his holding came from my pokertracker stats where he was about 4% preflop raiser. On top of that, he raised from UTG, was raised by a tight player UTG +2, and he reraised. If he doesn't have KK or AA in this situation I would believe that to be a miracle. I don't think he would have gotten away from his hand preflop if he had KK. I would never make this play in any other situation but the fact that we had MUCH larger stacks than the rest of the table allowed me to steal virtually risk free.

This is the only time I ever played a hand like this and I would move in/ reraise large everytime in the future. I just thought I might have been on to something.

Legends WPT bound,

Jeff

[Exitonly]

Well if you were 'on to something' then push preflop, he's going to call you, and you become a HUGE stack in the tournament 80%+ of the time. And even if you dont get any more money out of him you can still be happy winning 16 or so BB.