Ace Jack on the button

[woodguy]

Hey Bruce,

PF I may call, but I'm not going to tell you not to raise, especially against a LAG.

Flop, I check behind to try to represent a K

Turn
-If he leads out I flat call. I'm really not worried about any draws and I don't want him out of the pot if I'm ahead, plus he he has a K he probably leads the river too and you can fold in good conscience, or call a (hopefully) small bet.

-You can make a case for raising the turn if he leads, if he pops you back easy laydown

-If he checks the turn I probably make a 1/2 pot bet

The reason I check the flop and bet the turn is in order to not induce a bluff on the river which I may not want to call.

Also checking this flop after being the PF raiser screams you have a K, and if he does have a K you can find out with a turn raise, or if you call the turn and he leads the river, he probably has one there too.

Regards,
Woodguy

[bruce]

I have slowly begun to incorporate checking the flop into my
play. However, my default mechanism is to bet the flop, which is how I reacted in this spot. If I check the flop
and air comes on the turn then I can fold if he fires a barrel on the turn. If he bets the turn when I catch up
in this spot, either a small turn raise or calling and then
folding to a river bet saves me a lot of chips. He also
may be fearful of me slowplaying AK, so on the net, I lose
a lot less with this course of action. On the downside
checking the flop will encourage him to bet the turn if we both have air on the turn. But all things considered chip
preservation is probably more important in this spot and
I like your line of play much better than mine. Thx.


By the way at the Legends, Padraig Parkinson is a master at
checking the flop regardless of how big or small a hand
he has. As a result he gets to see a lot of river cards
for free. His opponents never know if he will raise
the turn or not. I played with him for around 4 hours
and he must check the flop at least 75% of the time.
Perhaps they play this way more in Europe.

Bruce

[DireWolf]

[ QUOTE ]

If he bets the turn when I catch up
in this spot, either a small turn raise or calling and then
folding to a river bet saves me a lot of chips.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you check the flop, I don't get why u would raise the turn? your not going to fold any better hands here (besides maybe 1-QQ). sure you represent a king here, but what good does that do, He either has a king as well and isn't folding, or you make him fold a hand you are beating.

By the same token, since you can't raise the turn, You have to think about calling the river right? This would be the hard decision for the hand. im assuming there is some chance villan will bet a worse hand than yours if the action goes:

check,check
bet,call
bet.

Although I would still need a definite LAG read to get involved with the AJo, I think maybe I have some kinda of phobia towards AJ, because I would be 10x more comfortable with AQ in this spot, even though you are likely right as they are not all that different in this spot. I actually got a lot out of this post myself, although I would still fold here personally, and maybe call if suited.

[bruce]

If he makes a small turn bet then if I make a small reraise, like a 2 to 3x raise and he comes over the top of me than it's an easy fold. If he calls my turn raise than
I probably get a free showdown.

Bruce

[bruce]

I to have gotten a lot out of this and I appreciate your insightful feedback. The beautiful thing about poker is how many different ways there are to skin a cat, correctly also, although some may be better than others.

I'm not sure if we are also being results oriented. If he
showsdown T9 on the river I'm not even sure if I would have posted this although the basic concepts would still be identical.

Bruce

[ QUOTE ]
I se that theres some debate on the best play preflop here. As I said, I easily fold AJos to a 3x BB raise early.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Patience. Its early in the tourney, and you have tons of time to trap this guy late on.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with both of these points very much. Why does there seem to be a prevailing assumption that a LAG is always preflop raising with a marginal hand?

I also agree that this is a good set up for a later play. IMHO, the best way to play against a LAG is to counter-punch, by leading them into bad spots while not walking into a bad spot of your own. Let them think they can run you over and bang, they walk right into a well prepared right cross.

It seems likely that the turn Jack improved your opponent's hand, and that he was probably hoping to check raise you there. QTs or AJs are feasible holdings. Or possibly he preflop raised with TT or 99.

I can see cold calling preflop (although I personally would have mucked). It's early and you might flop top pair which could be good. I don't really like the reraise, because you would be making dead money out of live money. If the LAG were to push, you would almost surely have to fold, or risk going in early with probably far less than the best of it.

Next, the flop has missed you completely. You have to decide to either try to bluff him off the pot, or get away from it as cheaply as possible. On this, I don't think there is any in between.

[Exitonly]

Spee we're not saying he's always raising w/ trash here...

but his range is huge.. he's a LAG anyway, and then it folded to him in great position to steal the blinds. He's as likely to have 78 here as he is AK.

[ QUOTE ]
Spee we're not saying he's always raising w/ trash here...

but his range is huge..

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed that the range could be huge, but IMHO, the keys are narrowing down that range, figuring out where your hand sits in that narrowed down range, and then whether or not the call is worthwhile based upon the odds offered.

The OP has AJo and is faced with a preflop LAG raise. Let's forget about the reraise (a mistake IMHO) and say for purposes of discussion, that in that position, the LAG will open raise for any suited connector bigger than 7, any unsuited connector bigger than 9, any suited 1-gap bigger than 9, any suited or unsuited Ace bigger than 8, and any pair smaller than Jacks (assuming he would try to be tricky and probably slow play QQ, KK and AA).

Under these circumstances, the player is a moderate dog (between about 2.3-1 to 3.3-1) for about 1/3 of the possible holdings. The player is a small to moderate favorite against about 2/3 of the possible holdings. This is computed with 2-Dimes, which assumes playing to the river which is all well and good.

However, the key is the effective odds which are an absolutely critical consideration.
- For the 80 or so hands in which the player is the favorite, the opponent is very unlikely to play beyond the flop,unless the flop catches him pretty well or he decides to push on a total bluff.
- For the 40 or so hands in which the player is a moderate dog, it is may cost quite a bit more money before getting away from the hand. This is especially true in the cases of flush draws, straight draws, and small to medium sets, in which the player could be coerced into paying off all the way to the river.


Conclusions?
In the face of effective odds considerations, is it really worthwhile to play this hand, even though the player is like 2-1 to be a favorite against the opponent's possible holding?

IMHO, no it is not, especially in a NLT. Better to conserve chips for a better opportunity and use feigned "weakness" as an opportunity to counter-punch later on.

[fnurt]

I don't see how a LAG is automatically going to give it up on the flop if he doesn't hit his hand. A continuation bet is standard stuff. And if you hit top pair and he has some kind of draw, he's likely to play it aggressively, which is a moneymaker for you in the long run.

I don't get what it means to "counterpunch later." If it means that you'll take a bunch of his chips when you have AA and he raises you, well sure, that's the situation we always dream of with a LAG at the table, but you can't sit around all day waiting for a monster. If you rate to have the best hand there's no shame in playing it.