Interesting AA post by Garland from medium stakes

[Garland]

You have some good points, but:

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the preflop calling range of a random opponent with those stats includes *almost every hand he raised preflop*.

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I don't think so. I think he would release at least 75% of the hands to the size of my re-raise. He's raising pre-flop light--almost 8% of his hands and probably open-raises with a very broad range. This would include KQ, KJ, QJ, JT, AQ, AJ and AT and probably some other assorted suited connectors. It was kind of subtle, and I don't know if anyone paid attention, but SB called the original $14 raise so my re-raise to $52 was bigger than it would be if it were just the original open-raise. The original raiser should be releasing all of the aforementioned hands.

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You can almost certainly expect action from AK (hey, a worse hand!) because AK calls ~50%+ preflop and puts more money in on this flop 100% of the time.

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Ok, suppose he has AK. I bet 1/2 pot or 3/4 pot and he flat calls. Now what? I've got to shut down, right? I give up the initative, then I'm almost certain to face a big bet on the turn or the river putting me in a big quandry.

Garland

[VanVeen]

"The original raiser should be releasing all of the aforementioned hands."

Should be. You never steal in this spot? You think he never thinks you're trying to steal in this spot? I haven't played a player yet (and I've played a ton of players) who do what they 'should do', even vs. very tight reraisers. "I'm bored, let's play" alone should put a 10% call frequency across the board for all of those hands. Every pocket pair that raised called the reraise (see: another active thread). If you agree this is true, and that your opponent doesn't attempt steal raises with underpairs on this flop, then you must agree that a bet has a positive expectation even if villain never gives action with a worse hand. But he will.

You're in a tricky spot on the turn if your opponent flat calls a bet. But check-folding this flop is undoubtedly wrong unless you know something specific (about preflop calling range or his flop action frequency w/different hands, i.e. he will only bet a set).

[Alexthegreat]

I'm fairly glad you are posting again. You are sweet.

[Garland]

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You never steal in this spot?

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No. No need to at these stakes.

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You think he never thinks you're trying to steal in this spot?

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I'm about as tight as they come if he's paying any attention at all. My raises and re-raises especially from blinds often command respect.

This is fairly small stakes, and I think we play fairly straightforward, but it's an awfully big call and an awfully big gamble by him if he's calling with the extremely marginal hands I've listed before.

There is a saying: "Sometimes you have to fold the winning hand to be a winning player." Obviously, I'm not sure if this is one of the cases as I wouldn't post it otherwise; it's the first time I've ever folded AA so easily post-flop. I'm eliciting opinions from other players and so far it seems that in general, the tighter players agree with check-folding, while the looser players think leading the flop and shutting down is proper. Opinions are still about half and half. At least no one thought check-calling or check-raising is correct [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Garland

[Woolygimp]

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I'm eliciting opinions from other players and so far it seems that in general, the tighter players agree with check-folding, while the looser players think leading the flop and shutting down is proper.

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It is the age old opinion of me and just about every other man around the globe that, " Tighter is usually better ."