10-20 live hand Harrahs New Orleans

[Lawrence Ng]

Ok, I've thought through this hand quite a few times and spent like 20 minutes doing so.

Preflop the SB can have anything as noted by the OP, but the range of hands for the BB is less if he's solid, so we can say big pocket pair and possibly AK.

I definitely raise an eye when both the SB and BB just check-call the flop here. It just seems a little strange here when the OP has the AQ, an ace is out on such a non co-ordinated board.

The turn shouldn't really help anyone so it's a safe card. I'm still pegging BB on a pocket pair at this point and SB on a weak ace, but I'll have to take note of his post flop play tendancies to really gauge how he plays his Ax hands to know the strength. But again, if BB is a solid player he's gotta know that a pocket pair is no good against an Ace board with two opponents in it - of which one raised preflop.

So this is indeed confusing for me and raises the other brow.

I'm clearly thinking that there's a small chance that BB is waiting to snipe a trap with AK. I don't put him on AA here just simply because there's such a miniscule chance of him having one if I peg the SB on an ace too.

Having said all this, the OP is either really ahead on this board or really behind. If there's a chance of being sniped, I actually think the play to do here is check the turn and call whatever/whoever bets the river and bet the river if checked too.

Do we give up some EV here - definitely. But we don't get have to fear a check-raise and the cost of 3 BB to take the pot down.

Lawrence