20/40 live hand I played

[PGarlic]

I've been reading and enjoying the hands posted in this room for quite some time now. I would like to contribute more but it seems like I never have any hands where I feel totally lost. I do make mistakes of course, but I usually just go over those hands myself and try to analyze the situation using my knowledge of the players at the table. I thought I would just post a interesting hand I played with comments.

The game is 20/40 NL. It's going 3 handed between myself, Marcus, and Allen. Both are good players. Allen is a tight player who likes to trap often. Marcus likes to play a LOT of hands but knows where he's at in the hand most of the time. He really likes to put the pressure on his opponents but doesn't like calling off his chips with the worst of it.

BB Jeremy($4,000)
SB Marcus($15,000)
Button Allen($5,000)

Preflop:
I'm dealt AQo.

Allen limps in, Marcus makes it $240 total.

That's an interesting raise I thought. We've been playing fairly passive preflop recently , suddenly Marcus makes a fairly big raise OOP. I was thinking of re raising him right there, as AQ is a good hand playing 3 ways but I chose to play the hand with position.

Jeremy calls, Allen folds.

Flop:
Qh 8s 5c

Marcus bets $400

At this point I felt I had the best hand. This looked like a continuation/feeler bet. Marcus knows I'm a tight player, when I call his big raise preflop he should put me on an appropriate range of hands. Out of those hands, which ones would like this flop? JJ? AK? He knows I'm re popping it with AA or KK and most likely QQ, and I'm just calling with worse hands. It seems like I could only have one hand that likes this flop and that's 88 55 or AQ.

If I re raise now he will fold all hands that I'm currently beating. I chose to play this hand with position so that I could extract the most money when I'm ahead and lose the minimum when behind. I opt to just call the flop and give him a chance to make a mistake.

Jeremy calls $400

Turn:
Qh 7s 4c 9h

Marcus bets $1,200

I was really surprised by this bet. I noticed he liked his hand more on the turn then the flop, how could that turn card have helped him? Maybe it didn't help him and he did indeed hold AA or KK. I did call his flop bet and there aren't many draws out there. I decided that if he had me beat at the moment I was gonna pay him. I thought that would our history (him pushing me off of hands quite often) and the strength of my hand I was gonna have to go all in.

Jeremy bets all in, Marcus calls.

He called instantly.

River:
Qh 7s 4c 9h 2s

He ended up holding JhTh, which makes sense.

Preflop he gets a hand which he believes can be played profitably against two tight opponents if played aggressively. On the flop he goes ahead and makes a continuation bet, a Q high flop is likely not desirable to me. I just call him. In his eyes, this could either be a few hands , from moderate to monster. On the turn he picks a lot of outs to beat any hand. So he bets enough to put my whole stack in question. He knows I will likely drop everything from KQ on down, with AQ being a borderline decision. Even if I have something as strong as a set he still has decent pot equity.

Well I thought this hand was interesting, hope you liked it.

edit: wrong forum [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]