Trust my gut?

[Cerril]

Party 5/10 6-handed

I haven't seen anyone do anything particularly stupid at this table, weak play but no glaringly bad habits.


I've got AQo on the button, folded to me, I raise, SB folds and BB 3-bets.

Flop KK6 rainbow. BB checks. This immediately screams 'king' to me, but I've also seen low pairs check/call down here. Still, the 3-bet/check is so suspicious it puts of a warning light. I bet, he calls.

Turn A. Damn, he checks, I bet, he raises. I call down and he shows me AK.

The question is, is it alright to give up even with a hand like this (AQ on an AKK board) when someone does something so different as to seem suspicious. Or should I bet until raised and then fold? Or was this just bad luck and in general even this sort of jarring play is to be expected?

It's been awhile since I've posted hands, so I expect I've been picking up all sorts of terrible habits. I know I'm still playing a fraction of the hands I should (21/17 over the last 10k, 23/16.5 overall), and it's costing me a good number of bets overall. I plan to get back into specific hands and gameplay discussion as soon as I have a 50k sample to work from, this is the first step to ironing out some of my biggest holes.

[Scotch78]

I would bet the flop as well, but when you hit the ace I would check behind and call a river bet. Either he's getting fancy or he isn't. If he isn't, then he probably has 2 outs in a smallish pot, so giving a free card is nothing to worry about. If he is being tricky, either with a king or a check-raise bluff, then betting the turn plays right into him.

Scott

[sam h]

The flop check is highly suspicious. In this situation I will often bet the flop so that I can check behind on the turn. Basically I just want to see the river as cheaply as possible. When the ace hits the turn, you have even more incentive to check since there are many hands with which your opponent is unlikely to call a turn bet but may bluff the river. If somehow I got into the pickle you were in on the turn, I would fold to the raise.

[Cerril]

Had a discussion with some friends about this one too and we came up with the same priorities:

a) bet, check behind the turn, call river
b) bet, bet turn, fold raise

What I did was pretty much flat out -2BB EV there

[etizzle]

one thing is for sure.

At 21-23%, you are not losing (if you are) because you are playing too tight.

[Surfbullet]

Nothing wrong with playing tight. Stay that way until you have gotten postflop sorted out - that's where it counts.

Surf

[Cerril]

Yeah, I'm trying to loosen up slowly and definitely working on not getting tighter. As I worked up from .5/1 to 3/6 I lost about a percent a limit until I was barely over 16% VP$IP in 10-handed games. I'm not losing, hovering just under 1/100 at just under 50k hands (due in large part to an early 370BB downswing that took half that to recover from while I was still relearning 6-max). But I know I could add a lot of hands and still be under an optimal VP$IP, but I need to solidify my postflop skills first.