An easy AA hand...

[AZK]

2/5 greektown, I've played a lot with villian, he is an old guy who is beating the game, but he isn't good, he plays tighter than most but sometimes he does these things that just make you wonder. Anyway, I raise to about 35 ($1600) in MP with AA. He ($550) calls in the SB and an awful guy calls in EP.

Flop comes JJ6 2 spades.

He leads into me for $30, I make it $90. He makes it $290. Your action?

My thoughts: Villian is capable of betting his draws, and betting boards to see if I missed, but I don't think he frequently bets into opponents who have shown strength. He knows/respects my play and I can't decide whether his reraise is "I have a J" or "I have a flush draw". I don't think he would have reraised with the Jack, rather he would have trapped so he either has a high pocket pair or a flush draw, I don't know. My thoughts are a bit muddle with this hand, I'd like to hear yours.

[wontons]

Pretty simple. Why risk 550 to see if he has a Jack giving you 2 outs. And I don't think he has a flush draw here but even with it if he is sitting with 1600 you know his reraise would pul you off your hand...i say just drop out...your either slightly ahead or WAY behind.

[ansky451]

I think this hand is very dependent on your read on the type of player he is. There are some players out there who would never in a million years lead into a flop with trip jacks going first, they think a check raise is the only way to play it. On paper I'd say this is a fold, but sitting at the table this might be an easy push depending on the circumstances.

[tbach24]

If you don't think he'd do this with a jack, then move in. He could be making a play at you with a PP (QQ?) But I think this is a fold (a difficult one). I don't know many people who re-raise on a paired board with a flush draw.

[etizzle]

I fold this almost every time without a great read.

[TightInn]

would he call your raise with AJ preflop?

[threepines]

What was the thinking behind your flop raise? What was your plan?

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
would he call your raise with AJ preflop?

[/ QUOTE ]

and a follow up question: would he have flat called the PF raise w/ QQ?

[SossMan]

Do we have the A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]?

[AZK]

Sossman - no A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], yes he could potentially cold call with something along the lines of QQ, TT etc. and just put me on AK.

Threepines - At the time, when I reraised to 90, I figured I could fold if went all in but really I was hoping he would call the 90, check the turn, and I could get to the river as cheap as possible. Plan sort of went out the window when he made it 290.

As for the hand, I thought he was on a draw, and wouldn't play a Jack this way, I said this out loud as I got 5 stacks of red together and then muttered, "maybe I'll learn my lesson" and put him all in. He showed me KJo and that was that. He said if he smoothcalled I would know he had a jack so he decided to reraise, well played I guess. My friend went ballistic because he was sitting next to me and said, you could hear it in your voice that you knew he had you so why did you put him all in, I don't know. I think I was a little bit off, this was like my 10th hour of play so I might not have been thinking clearly.

As a seperate issue, I find it really hard to release hands when I actually have something decent and raised preflop, I'm really trying to fight the urge but more often than not when I raise with a premium hand, even if I know I'm beat, I try to throw money at the problem and hope I can bully it away. Stupid. What's weird is that when I raise any speculative hand (which is frequently when I have position) I have no problem mucking it when it totally misses the flop, but for some reason AA - JJ, AKs, these are trouble hands for me cause I can't let them go as easily as I would like. So frustrating but I guess hands like this one will hopefully reiterate to me that NL is not a game of top pairs.