2/4 AA

[craze9]

Pokerstars 2/4 nl

I have about $800, villain has $360 or so. Villain is not a particularly good or tricky player, though I've noticed he likes to call raises preflop with some marginal hands.

UTG player limps, I make it $20 to go next to him with AsAd. Villain calls in middle position and everyone else folds.

Flop: Kd 9s 8c

I bet $40 he calls. Turn Qd. I bet $60 he raises $90 to $150.

Villain has $150 left. Whats your play?

[mks]

chuck it.

[Popinjay]

u r beat d00d

[craze9]

Beat by what hand?

Or is it just "i'm raised with one pair and should fold." It's a pretty weak raise after all.

[mks]

KQ JT 99 88 98 most likely

then KK QQ K9 less likely

a better question is what are you beating here?

[craze9]

Basically the only hands beating me that I thought he would have called with preflop were a set, KQ, or MAYBE JT. And I was pretty confident from the way he played past hands that he would not raise the turn with a set or JT, but would wait for the river to raise.

I decided he probably had KQ, and thought he could also easily have AK. I called the raise hoping for an 8, 9 or A on the river and a free showdown.

Horrible play?

[mks]

Yeah a call is horrible, and it doesn't matter how the hand turned out. Calling that flop and raising the turn is a very strong play on that board. You're not getting odds to draw to your 8 outer (you're calling 90 into a 330 pot with only 150 more implied odds IF your hand is good when you hit, meaning you're getting max 5.3-1 on your close to 6-1 draw). That's bad to start.

Now factor in the fact that a lot of the time you have 2 outs or less and the call gets even worse. And the fact that when you hit your 8 or 9 a lot of the time you're gonna lose 150 more, since I'm just not buying the notion that this guy would never raise a set here on the turn.

So basically you're calling praying that this guy has AK. So what if he does have AK? And what if for some reason he decided to not raise the flop with AK? And what if he then decided to put in a big stack-committing raise on the turn with AK after QQ and KQ catch up and the preflop raiser puts in another good size bet? Then maybe you can win with your Aces.

Are you gonna check-fold the river if you don't catch one of your (suspect) 8 outs? Or are you gonna call another $100? Or another $60? After all he might have AK.

Listen, it's always easy when you got AA to fantasize about the guy holding the one hand you beat, but get over it. You're beat here and you're not getting nearly the right price to catch up. Fold.

[Popinjay]

The raise is not weak, it wants a call. It is not a raise designed to get you to fold. Clearly he has a better hand than AA here.

[craze9]

I think you're right.

Do you think it makes a difference if I bet $40 on the turn (instead of $60) and he raises $60 to $100? This is what actually happened. It was a rather weak bet by me and I thought that might be contributing to his raise. Plus it wasnt pot-committing.

What would be your play on the turn with this scary board? Would you check or bet, and if you bet, how much? Check fold seems pretty wrong to me as it just gives up to AK or any aggressive player.

Btw he had KQ

[soah]

Am I the only one that would consider checking the turn here? Then I may or may not fold depending upon how my opponent reacts, and how I've seen them play various hands in the past. Your opponent will have some type of made hand a *lot* more often than just a draw here so a bet doesn't protect you - a bet here can only be for value, and as others have pointed out, it's too likely that your opponent holds the better hand. Finding a cheap path to a showdown should be a priority here, IMO.