ATs on the button: postflop play

[bluefeet]

raising the flop is an option - but...

it's hard to adequately represent a hand that either won't feel they have the odds to out-improve (on this draw flop). HU, i'd be more inclined to give it a try.

not to mention the cost of finding yourself in a reraise situation.

here, i take the cheapest path to showdown, knowing full well we might be done an a 'scary' turn card/action (despite having had, or still having TPTK)

what is cheapest? certainly not raising the flop. short of a over/committing raise, you will likely get a caller (or two). you now have a turn pot completely unmanagable, possibly facing a number of scary cards. i like calling the flop.

leading the turn again? on the surface it looks a bit unwarranted - facing the check-check. but this is a classic case of pot control in the other respect...decreasing the likelihood of facing a river bluff, accepting the check-check.

by not leading the turn, you face a few situations on the river

- calling/folding to a very sizable lead (perhaps a bluff, perhaps not)
- calling a modest value bet (w/ or w/o the winning hand)
- getting it free as well

because we didn't (rightfully so, IMO) raise the flop, it's more likely one of the first two will ring true. where having faced no resistance to this point, UTG may stab/value/block again...or worse (pricing a fold from us).

assuming that we will be in a position to accept either of the two latter scenarios, i'd prefer to spend the worse case here on the turn (as you did). this is our point in time that we can decide to be done with the hand. folding to a raise, perhaps not calling an aggressive river lead (understanding that we will often get the check-check though).

all of this much easier deep-stacked on stars of course.

nh IMO.